Visa refusal for Stepchildren

[jons1]

Hello

I really hope someone can help as my family have received the worst news today, that will effectively ruin any chance of a normal family life together.

I am British citizen from birth born to 2 British parents (and family generations of British citizenship going back hundreds of years for all that matters) and have a Filipina partner. My partner is currently residing in the UK on an unmarried partner (spouse visa) and has just extended her visa for the next 2.5 years until I believe she can apply for indefinite leave to remain. We are currently not married as we have had to go through a very painful both emotionally and financially annulment process to have her previous marriage annulled because of the antiquated divorce laws in the Philippines. This took over 5 years to happen, cost thousands of pounds and worst of all meant I couldn't be with my own son properly for the first 3 years of his life as we had issues to get his British passport and were misinformed by the UK authorities that we couldn't apply for a spouse visa until the marriage was annulled. We have two children together age 1 and 6 (who are British citizens, one born in the Philippines and the other fortunately born in the UK) and my partner has 2 children from her previous marriage who are 17 & just turned 18 (who are Filipino). I have been with my partner for over 10 years. Her ex husband abandoned them shortly after the birth of the second child and has no contact with them since. We applied for the 2 Filipino children for dependent visas shortly after my partner's visa was extended, we have only just applied for this as we wanted to ensure we can accommodate the children as best as possible here in the UK and so as to meet the accommodation requirements of the visa application, before I was living in a small flat but now live in a more suitable house. Also the previous expenses of visa applications, British citizenship for my son and the annulment process had completely destroyed all my savings. My 2 stepsons currently live with my partner's Mother and Sister's family in a very small house in a slum part of Manila.

Unfortunately today we have received the news that these applications have been refused due to the eligibility relationship requirement of paragraph E.EEC.1.2-1.6, which from I what I think is we cannot prove that my partner has sole responsibility over the care of her sons. This is very distressing for all my family. My partner speaks to her children every day, we send them money every 2 weeks for their living expenses and their father abandoned them, which we asked him to write a letter (which the Home Office has said is unverifiable) and my partner signed an affidavit of guardianship. We also sent bank statements detailing the money sent to the Philippines for the children's support, however, the home office have said these do not prove the money was used for the children's care. I had opened a UK bank account in my name and gave my partner's sister the bank card. I and my partner both meet the required financial requirements. The one complicating factor is my partner when she originally applied for the Spouse visa did not put down the names of our Filipino children and only put our British eldest son as her dependents on the form as she mistakenly thought this was not necessary as our Filipino children were not travelling with her at the time.

We are all devastated by this news especially all the children concerned as they are living apart from their brothers. My 2 stepsons are very much looking forward to moving to the UK to be with their younger brothers, the youngest of whom they have only seen once for a few days. They have suffered a lot of emotional trauma in their life as they have never had an opportunity to live a normal family life due to these immigration and living and growing up in one of the most poverty stricken places in the Philippines (obviously I have tried to alleviate the poverty issue as much as possible over the last 10 years but I can only do so much from the UK) and so I really don't understand how someone can deny this to them, they are innocent children and I always thought that this was the very basic of human rights. My eldest son here in the UK also doesn't understand why he cannot be with his brothers and why they live in Manila with their grandmother and aunt. He has lived together with them during his first few years of his life so I am sure it must have affected him emotionally too.

We will be appealing this decision and so was wondering if anyone else has had this same problem and have gone through the appeal process?

If my 2 stepsons are refused the appeal I can only see 2 outcomes:

I will either have to move the Philippines with my whole family, which will drastically and detrimentally affect everyone's life as I will have no work there to support them.

or we will have to continue as a broken family, which is already detrimentally affecting everyone's life . With the 2 sons here in the UK and with the travel cost, it will mean we will very rarely be able to see each other again.

I really hope someone can provide some help or advice. Thanks!

[vinny]

See also Sole Responsibility.

[Tamandua]

If you successfully address all the points of refusal the decision should be overturned by the judge. The HO won't issue a visa unless your wife can prove she has sole responsibility over the care of her sons.

In some countries, absent parents can have their parental rights terminated. Maybe your wife can get a legal document that states the father is no longer considered the legal parent of the children under the law.

[secret.simon]

my partner has 2 children from her previous marriage who are 17 & just turned 18 (who are Filipino).

Age may also cause issues with their applications. The step-child who has turned 18 will be treated as an adult for the purposes of the IUK Immigration Rules and the requirements for adult dependent relatives are very high.

You may want to look at moving to another EEA member-state before Brexit. Under EU law, children of either the EEA citizen or their spouse (unmarried partners do not count) under the age of 21 have the right to join the EEA family member in another EEA member-state. So, rather than moving to the Philippines, you may want to look at marrying your partner and moving to say Ireland or the Netherlands or Germany and then inviting your step-sons over there.

[jons1]

Thanks for your comments, am looking into the legal documents for this - however, my only concern is amount of time things like this take in the Philippines. My partner's marriage annulment process took over 5 years. Saying that though we have the court documents from the annulment, which we unfortunately didn't submit for the visa applications of the children as we thought we had provided all the necessary information. Within this it states the ex-husband has had little to no contact with the children and is mentally incapacitated, which was the reason for their annulment of the marriage - do you think this would be deemed sufficient evidence to show my partner as sole responsibility?