I’m an American citizen who has been living legally in the UK for over 4 years. I came here on a student visa, moved on to a post study visa, and now have a tier 2 employer sponsored visa. I am NOT eligible for a tier 1 visa. As a charity worker, I simply do not make enough money. And, at 34, the UKBA considers me over-the-hill.
My charity has been hit hard by the current financial climate. We are facing mass redundancies at the beginning of the financial year. If I am made redundant, I’ll be given 2 months notice and then have another month to pack my bags and f**k off back to the States. (Sorry, all the anti-immigrant rhetoric being bandied about at the moment is making me pretty bitter).
To be honest, I wouldn’t be terribly bothered about leaving if I wasn’t very much in love and don’t want to be separated. My partner and I have been living together only since April 2010, so we cannot apply for a partner visa. To ensure that we can stay together, we would like to get married – a bit ironic, since neither of us really believes that marriage is important. The important thing to us, however, is that we are together and able to support ourselves.
We would like to keep everything completely legitimate so that no country ever has a reason to deny either of us visas.
So, if I made redundant, I’d have to go back in July/August or so. Ideally I would like to be married before then so that I could apply for a spousal visa, rather than a fiancé visa—as spouses (but not fiancés) are legally allowed to work. If I am made redundant, I would probably apply for the spouse visa from within the USA as it can be expedited from the NY embassy – not an option for applications made from within the UK.
So, how to get married?!?!?! I see that, rightly so, the certificate of approval (COA) scheme is due to be abolished by March (we’ll see if they keep to that – doubtful). I find it absolutely disgusting that two adults need to ask for permission to get married. What a gross violation of human right laws! As Brit, my partner is even more disgusted that his right as a British citizen to marry is being impinged upon.
But ultimately, we are not going for the COA as a matter of practicality, not principle.
I don’t want to submit a COA application, because I’ve heard of people waiting for over 8 months. Particularly now that there is no profit for the UKBA and they are on the way out anyway, COAs are low on the priorities of processing. I also know how difficult it was to get my current visa – the UKBA is the most horribly inefficient organisation. They sit on applications for months and I simply cannot be without a passport for that long as we have important plans to travel abroad.
So, we cannot get married in the UK until the COA is abolished. But this is cutting it close with my potential redundancy. Also, I fear whatever more retrograde measure they might put in to replace the COA.
So then we had considered getting married in the US during an upcoming trip. (Our friends are getting married in New York in April, so it would be a two-fer). However, I have since discovered that it is illegal for a foreigner to come to the US on a tourist visa with plans to marry. (Again, I want do everything by the book.)
However, we currently have no plans to stay in the US. Our lives are here in the UK. So we’d get married and then leave. Then I would apply for a UK spouse visa. With luck I will still be employed long enough to wait it out on my current visa for however many months it takes to get it approved. If I don’t have a job, however, I would just hang about the US for a few extra weeks to get my expedited UK spousal visa out of country.
I’ve been thinking about this for months, but with all these unknowns swirling about and obstacles in our way, I’m really unsure about what is best. I fear that I may be not seeing any potential pitfalls. So any guidance / advice / tips from you folks would be very much appreciated.
Long story short, I’m in love and I want stay with my partner. I don’t know why this needs to be so complicated.
