Emergency travel document for child (new) british citizen
Posted: Mon May 15, 2023 9:44 am
Hi,
I am writing to seek guidance on our personal circumstances which have led us stranded in Pakistan in an uncertain and unexpected situation. In February 2023, our previous UK visas were expiring for which we reapplied for an extension duly from Scotland. My children (age 8 and 4) were eligible to apply for their naturalization, which we applied for back in October 2022, as we anticipated a trip to Pakistan during the Easter holidays this year to attend my brother’s wedding. I applied for my biometric renewal in January, a month before its expiration to avoid any unpleasant situations. I received my biometrics in time, which led me to start communicating with the authorities for my children’s certificates in March which were confirmed to me via e-mails back in January, as our travel date was arriving and we still did not know the whereabouts of their certificates.
After a couple of weeks of communication through the local MP, we received the certificates at our home address in Scotland (which were issued back in January, but did not reach us until mid-march). At the time, I was aware of the fact that children’s UK passports will be applied for after the certificates, but I did not know their certificates are not valid as travel documents. Due to a very tight timeline for applying for their UK passports (which included having to book another appointment to be attended in person), I googled to explore my options at the time and gov.uk stated British citizens can re-enter UK with their certificates of entitlements (I made a human error where I mistook the ‘certificates of citizenship’ to be same as the ‘certificates of entitlement’) and was completely oblivious to actuality until last morning (14th May 2023) when we were at the Islamabad airport to board our flights back to UK after a 5 weeks trip. No authorities flagged me while I was travelling to Pakistan last month, showing them the certificates at the immigration counter, otherwise, I would have taken the necessary steps to ensure our smooth return back or rescheduled my trip, to begin with.
I take responsibility for this misjudgement on my part, which has caused my family severe emotional and financial distress. We missed our flight, and are now apparently stranded as the minimum process time to apply for UK passports from Pakistan is 31 weeks. The timeline is not practical because we live in the UK and happened to be visiting family in Pakistan, at the airport I was asked to bring in an authorized letter to return back to the UK. My children were due to return to school on Monday (15th May 2023), but now the situation seems quite uncertain with extremely long processing times.
What should be the most viable course of action for us to return back to the UK asap?
I am writing to seek guidance on our personal circumstances which have led us stranded in Pakistan in an uncertain and unexpected situation. In February 2023, our previous UK visas were expiring for which we reapplied for an extension duly from Scotland. My children (age 8 and 4) were eligible to apply for their naturalization, which we applied for back in October 2022, as we anticipated a trip to Pakistan during the Easter holidays this year to attend my brother’s wedding. I applied for my biometric renewal in January, a month before its expiration to avoid any unpleasant situations. I received my biometrics in time, which led me to start communicating with the authorities for my children’s certificates in March which were confirmed to me via e-mails back in January, as our travel date was arriving and we still did not know the whereabouts of their certificates.
After a couple of weeks of communication through the local MP, we received the certificates at our home address in Scotland (which were issued back in January, but did not reach us until mid-march). At the time, I was aware of the fact that children’s UK passports will be applied for after the certificates, but I did not know their certificates are not valid as travel documents. Due to a very tight timeline for applying for their UK passports (which included having to book another appointment to be attended in person), I googled to explore my options at the time and gov.uk stated British citizens can re-enter UK with their certificates of entitlements (I made a human error where I mistook the ‘certificates of citizenship’ to be same as the ‘certificates of entitlement’) and was completely oblivious to actuality until last morning (14th May 2023) when we were at the Islamabad airport to board our flights back to UK after a 5 weeks trip. No authorities flagged me while I was travelling to Pakistan last month, showing them the certificates at the immigration counter, otherwise, I would have taken the necessary steps to ensure our smooth return back or rescheduled my trip, to begin with.
I take responsibility for this misjudgement on my part, which has caused my family severe emotional and financial distress. We missed our flight, and are now apparently stranded as the minimum process time to apply for UK passports from Pakistan is 31 weeks. The timeline is not practical because we live in the UK and happened to be visiting family in Pakistan, at the airport I was asked to bring in an authorized letter to return back to the UK. My children were due to return to school on Monday (15th May 2023), but now the situation seems quite uncertain with extremely long processing times.
What should be the most viable course of action for us to return back to the UK asap?