EEA Family permit refusal

[afezoj]

Hi, my husband was refused EEA family permit 2 times. The reason is suspicion of marriage of convenience.

With the first refusal they said that we say we have a child but we did not provide any evidence for it(just photographs). Plus we did not provide evidence that we are in contact since marriage. We got married in 02/06/2016 and we applied for permit in September.

The officer is saying that my husband did not provide evidence that I was in Egypt in March to become pregnant, our baby was born on 17/12/2015.

I confirm that I did include in my husbands application tickets from all 3 visits to my husband one of which was in 01/04/2015 until 08/04/2015. I believe the ECO omitted this fact to have stronger grounds to refuse my husbands application.

Pregnancy last 40 weeks from the day of the women's last menstrual period and 38 weeks from the day of conception. Our daughter was born at 39 weeks which is 37 weeks after conception.(i proved this second time with copy from our daughter health record)

He said that my husband submitted "2 return flight bookings from London to Cairo. Departing and returning in July 2015 and departing on 30/05/2016 and returning on 3/06/2016".

We submitted 3 flight bookings:
1) London to Hurghada 01/04/2015/ - Return: 08/04//2015
2) London to Luxor (not Cairo like he said) 13/07/2015 - Return: 27/07/2015
2 London to Cairo 30/05/2016 - Return:13/06/2016 (not 3/06/2016 like he said)

We got married on 02/06/2016. ECO said that I returned 1 day after marriage. Was that to suggest that I come to Cairo only to get married and this is fake marriage and we don't spend any time together after marriage??? I returned on 13th not 3rd.

Second time we provided screenshots of photographs from every visit with dates and all those were attached to tickets so it was so easy to compere the dates from tickets and photographs.

We provided 25 pages of viber and messenger conversations and call from August and September.
This time ECO said that we only provided photographs from last visit when we got married (lie)and we did not provide any evidence of conversation before marriage. I did send some text messages from April 2016.

Stupidly we were deleting our conversations as we did not have enough storage in the phone. I was not aware that we have to show them the messages when we apply for visa:(

My question is what we can do now ? On both occasions the ECO lied about the evidence. How can I complain? Shall I use a layer next time. Can those people lie and hide evidence?

Please help.

[afezoj]

I would like to add that after our daughter was born I went to register her birth on my own and I was told that I can not put her father details on the certificate because we are not married. When I said we will get married in summer I was advised that we can re-register the birth after marriage.

On July 21st I applied to re-register the birth so the birth certificate contains the father’s details plus I wanted to change our daughter’s surname. In September I received the answer from General Register Office saying that they are unable to authorize the re-registration because the father’s country of domicile at the time of marriage was Egypt.

I was advised that we can re-register the birth by attending both to the Register Office or my husband can send me declaration of parentage signed in front of a solicitor. I explained this in the letter but ECO completely ignored the fact that we have a child and not mentioned her at all in refusal letter.

[noajthan]

Burden of proof is on HO to back up their suspicion of marriage of convenience.
And a child, apart from being a blessing in themselves, helps mitigate such a suspicion or allegation.

HO does play hardball with FP applications, sometimes it takes 2 or 3 applications.
However you can see in your case the ECO has not followed HO guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... onvenience

In case of serious doubt ECO could have invited you for interview and that does not appear to have happened.
Unfortunately if relationship is not accepted then my understanding is there is no right of appeal. Not sure.

Perhaps all there is to do is to collate another application, addressing all points with rock-solid evidence as far as possible.

[Obie]

I think in light of there conduct , you may well need to consider exercising yout appeal rights.

[afezoj]

My husband had the right to appeal on both occasions but this can take up to 6 months.

My worry is that if we submit the application again they will lie about what evidence we provided and refuse again. This happened both times before.

And they did not make any attempt to contact my husband.

[noajthan]

My husband had the right to appeal on both occasions but this can take up to 6 months.

My worry is that if we submit the application again they will lie about what evidence we provided and refuse again. This happened both times before.

And they did not make any attempt to contact my husband.

Based on your experience to date don't expect this to be quick or easy. Suggest plan accordingly factoring in timelines involving several months.