Spouse of Irish national

[rasher83]

Hi guys.
I'm Irish, My wife is Brazilian. we got Married in March.
She was here previously in Ireland for almost 16 months on 2 consecutive student visas.
We fell in love, she went home to Brazil for a few months, with the intention of maybe coming back for a further 8 month study visa.
I visited Brazil for 3 weeks, met her family, and proposed to her.

I came back to Ireland and began the process of applying for a marriage certificate in ireland, and supplying all the documentation that the HSE require to verify the details and the relationship.
I scheduled the interviews in Dublin with HSE. My partner came over in december, told the immigration officer of her intention to get married during the 90 days, showed him the hse appointment letters and such. and she was permitted in.

We did our interviews, got our marriage cert and got married. YAY.

here's where things went a bit funny. from the website, and i checked and rechecked this numerous times in the 5 months prior. it stated that if someone from a non eu country, that is also non visa required, comes to ireland to get married, they notify the immigration officer, check. they get married, check, they go to their local immigration office (limerick) and show the passports, marriage cert, and get processed for the stamp4.

the officer in limerick was quite rude and made out as if we were some sort of special case, and referred us to contact dublin. I emailed dublin inis asking what I needed to provide to limerick to process her stamp4 application. the email i got back said as we were refused by the officer in limerick we must submit the form res6, plus all the evidence and supporting documentation. being prepared as we were for the hse part prior to the wedding, i had all of this info plus photos of the wedding and lots more. I was extremely frustrated at this but chose not to try and argue the point as timeliness was of the essence.

we sent the form and evidence off prior to covid lockdown. and have been sitting waiting since.

I saw recently on the inis website that the processing dates for applications received has finally passed the date that we submitted and got our acknowledgement letter back. (assuming we are waiting on Join family (Sponsor is an Irish citizen or is in Category A*)

So, I infer from that that our application is on someones desk and being processed.

I understand people have encountered 6-12 months processing times in the past, but is there any indication of whether that 6-12 months is based onthe date the application was sent in ack receipt acknowledged... or is that an estimate of the processing time from when someone starts handling our application.

I have a secure job and salary, and we aren't reliant right now on her working, but shes an independent woman and is eager to get to work here, so we are wondering if anyone has any experience in the last 6 months with SOIN and processing times.

thanks for any comments or help in advance.

[littlerr]

Welcome to the forum.

Here's the deal.

A non visa-required national (such as your wife) can come to Ireland with the purpose of joining his/her Irish spouse without a visa.

The immigration officer at the border will check their details and give them the correct entry stamp on their passport, which will indicate what they can do with this stamp.

You both then attend the GNIB or local Garda station to complete the registration. If everything is fine, she gets a Stamp 4 and job done.

However, sometimes the officer may not be 100% convinced that the marriage is genuine. This could be due to various reasons. For example:
- the applicant may have overstayed their visa previously or in other countries;
- the applicant may have a visa rejection in Ireland or in other countries;
- the officer may suspect the marriage is a 'marriage of convenience';
- the applicant came to Ireland on a different stamp;
- the applicant didn't bring sufficient document to prove the relationship is genuine;
- or maybe the officer was simply in a bad mood. You never know.

Anyway, when this happens (and it happens A LOT), they will refer the applicant to the SOIN unit. They would put the reasons as to why they couldn't approve the permission in their system, and the reasons will be visible for review for the SOIN unit. They don't have to explain the reason to the applicant though.

In your case here, I think the biggest concern here is that your wife came here on 2 short-term student visas. Was the student permission on a college degree course with a reputable college, or just some random language courses?

When you say she went back to Brazil for a few months, did she finish her course? Your said 'with the intention of maybe coming back for a further 8 month study visa' is extremely worrying. You either study full time, or you don't get the permission. A typical student will not just study for some months, then go back to a different country for a few months, and then decide to come back again to study for a few more months.

Anyway, that sounds like a big red flag to me at least, that the intention of staying in Ireland (i.e. studying) was probably not genuine. SOIN unit may scrutinise her over this heavily.

Regarding your actual question, the processing could take another 6 months, although you should get some updates during the period, and it is likely that they will ask her for more documentary proofs.

[maxiao888]

You seem very knowledgeable about Irish immigration. Do you have any insight about my situation?:

ireland/temporary-stamp-4-questions-t307043.html