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Separate Queues?

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 4:44 pm
by Justlorde
I’m eligible for becoming British citizen, having been on ILR for 4 years now.

My wife is still 2 years away from ILR.

If I become British Citizen, and she continues to hold Indian passport, will we be able to queue together in UK immigration queue or both will have to queue separately in UK and other national queue?

PS - Sorry for trivial question.

Re: Separate Queues?

Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 6:39 pm
by alterhase58
Not trivial at all ...
You can present yoursef as family travelling together, probably best to use the British Citizens line which may also be shorter at the time.

Re: Separate Queues?

Posted: Sun Feb 20, 2022 7:52 am
by secret.simon
Airport queues are primarily for the convenience of the Border Force staff. If they can predict the type of person in the queue, they can streamline their processes and their staff at that counter would develop a routine to deal with the queue more expeditiously. So, for instance, checks in a queue for non-EEA citizens would be very different from those for British citizens, etc.

I would go in the other direction from @alterhase58 and suggest that both of you process through the Non-EEA citizens queue (i.e. the more scrutinised queue of the two). It is perfectly possible for the Border Staff officer at the counter for British citizens to ask either your wife alone or both of you to go to the queue for non-EEA citizens when you reach the front of the British citizens queue. Dealing with a non-EEA citizen person at the British citizens queue will simply hold up that queue and the Border Force officer may be reluctant to do that.

In any case, whenever I have come through a UK airport, I and the vast majority of British and EEA citizens use the E-Gates, bypassing the counters completely anyway. So eitherways, I doubt it will make much of a difference.

Re: Separate Queues?

Posted: Thu Feb 24, 2022 5:39 pm
by mesn
Believe you are able to take the British Citizens queue. We did that with 3 of us still on ILR and our 1 Year old who had a British passport. The Non-EU Queue was at least 2 hours long.

The trip before this, I wasn't aware and we ended up spending 6 hours [yes] in the Non EU queue on a bad day at Heathrow.