removel from UK

[andreea28]

Hi,

My brother (Romanian) came to UK with an au pair visa for 2 years. After 2 years before his visa expired he applied for switch and self-employment visa.

On the 27 of March (post office stamp) he received the refusal from Home Office and requested to leave the country as soon as possible. He called the Home Office and they said he should leave UK in 28 days after he received the letter of refusal.
My brother bought the ticket to return to Romania for the 25 of March and he was arrested for overstaying just hours before he was suppose to fly to Romania.
I supposed they missed the fact that February had 28 days and not 30 or 31 days.
He showed his ticket to the immigration officers but they were not interested.
He received a letter of removal directions on the 27 of March and was removed to Romania on the 29 of March.
In my opinion this is not fair since he was told that he had 28 days before he will be removed and he had the ticket to return to Romania at 26 days, 2 days before the 28 days from the day he received the letter of refusal.

I will appreciate any advice you can give me.

Many thanks,

[mhunjn]

Sorry for the whole nightmare for you... But the bureacrats and law enforcement don't look at it that way. The fact he was overstaying puts him in the removal category... even though he had a valid ticket etc.

[tvt]

The Immigration Service has an inherent incentive to make removals and improve the statistics.

[touchsensor]

I am sorry to hear about your brother. Can't he appeal to a tribunal? Maybe contest on Section 3C? I am not so sure about this but I think it helps people who are caught overstaying due to no fault of them.
Someone else might be able to show some light on this.

[tvt]

Anyway it was announced today that both Bulgaria & Romania would become EU member on the 1/1/2007.


http://www.workpermit.com/news/2006_04_ ... embers.htm

[andreea28]

The problem is that the Romanian authorities will give my brother an interdiction, so he will not be able to enter in the UK for 5 years.

Below is the advice I received from an a expert in immigration.

Your brother's status in the UK restricts his ability to change
his status without leaving the UK Therefore his application for leave
to remain as a business person would not have succeeded in any event.

Specifically you wanted to know if he had 28 days to leave the UK.
Section 10 of the 1999 Act sates that he had 28 days to leave the UK.
However, the 28 days are in fact a period of notice, and are days in
which the Immigration Enforcement Department would generally not take
action, it does not give the person a right to remain in the UK, nor
does it extend the person's leave to remain.


In conclusion, although your brother did have 28 days to leave
and the 28 days starts two days after the letter was posted. Given
that he received the notice on the 27th Feb., the time started on that
date. 28 days after that would have been 27th March. In effect the
notice had two days to go. He was therefore removed sooner than he
should have been.

The question for you is whether to appeal against the decision to
remove him from the UK before the expiry of the notice period. Clearly
that would be a choice for him. What you need to take into account is
the costs of bringing such a case. The proper channel for bringing a
case of this sort, is by Judicial Review. That is a costly process and
the decision may go against you, as there are risks with all court
cases.

On the other hand you may be of the view that the cost of a JR is
worthwhile because of the actions the Romanian authorities would take
against him.