Outside ireladnd for more than 1 year on stamp 4

[maanoeln]

Hey guys,

I was granted stamp 4 in November/2019 after I got married to an Irish national. However 2 months later, my father got sick, he had cancer, in Brazil and asked me to move back to help him with the family business. So I stayed in Brazil to take over the business. When I was planning to come back to Ireland coronavirus hit Europe, and for health reasons and safety measures, I decided to stay in Brazil waiting the pandemic to low the guard, less cases, to come back to Ireland. However, in the meantime, Brazil got hit by the pandemic severally, and that was when all countries started closing the borders to Brazilians.

This year, after getting my vaccine, me and my husband decided to come for Christmas, and when I was going through the IO she asked my address, and I was honest telling her that I wasn't living in the state, explaining all the reasons and still she treated me rudely. I felt really uncomfortable and humiliated. So I was wondering, how should I proceed now? Because I've seen her putting some notes on the system and I was wondering if it will cause any negative impact on my immigration status? I have valid reasons to be abroad for so long.

My stamp is still valid until September/2022. So supposedly I am not illegal or doing anything wrong, when I was going through the IO, I was just honest and telling the truth :/

[littlerr]

Yes your immigration history will have already been affected. Saying that you have 'valid reasons' doesn't make you legal. There are proper ways of informing INIS, but that needs to be done at the time when it happened, not 2 years later.

To be honest, immigration has taken a very lenient approach since COVID started, and almost everybody who was stranded abroad for an extended period of time was allowed back into the country without any adverse effect on their record.

However, your case is different, and COVID isn't a valid excuse for you, for the following reasons:

- You left 2 months before lockdown happened. So even if there is no COVID, it appears you didn't have any plan to come back to Ireland within a month. I presume you also didn't inform INIS after being abroad for a month, which means you have violated Section 9(2)(e) of Immigration Act 2004, which clearly states that you must formally inform INIS if you are absent from your registration address for more than a month.

- You have violated the conditions of your Stamp 4, which would have stated that you must reside in Ireland for at least 9 months every year with your spouse. Any change to that must be reported to INIS. You have not resided in Ireland for any time for the last 2 years.

- You mentioned that countries closed borders to Brazilians. That is for tourists and temporary visitors. Ireland has NOT closed borders to any Irish residents abroad. Any Irish residents who have a valid IRP card have always been able to come back to Ireland at any time, so that isn't a valid excuse. Of course, flight tickets can be extremely expensive at times, so you might need to wait for a few months before you can get a flight ticket with a reasonable price, but 2 whole years is simply not a reasonable timeframe.

- You mentioned that you 'explained' all reasons in the border. Of course when a person has violated rules, they would try to explain things. That's not how it works and I don't think the border officer will buy any of that. Having cancer and then hit by COVID are 2 unfortunate things, but you have been given almost 2 years to send a 5-minute email to INIS with any proof of medical emergency and/or explanations, but you chose not to do that.

There isn't much you can do now. You have violated the Immigration Act and you have violated your conditions of Stamp 4. INIS may or may not take actions against you. The only thing you can and should do is to write a sincere apology letter, admit that you have not paid attentions to the conditions of your permissions, attach proofs of medical emergency in your letter, and hope for the best.

[maanoeln]

Weel, my father was hospitalized with cancer, I needed to look after 3 farms and do my dads job, so my mind was completely full with other stuff. So the last that came to my mind was sending an email to inform INIS about this. I know I should have but at the time I was overwhelmed with other stuff. Anyways, when you say that me being a resident I had the option to come back, me as a human being as well had the option to think about my health safety and not travel and ended up getting contaminated with the virus or worse contaminating other people.

Anyways, thank for your help. Do you know what email should I contact inis?

[littlerr]

Yeah I understanding the feeling. Unfortunately there are obligations with your permissions and if you don't follow them, you can't really blame the immigration for being frustrated.

Dublin residents: immigrationsupport@justice.ie
Non-Dublin residents: gnib_dv@garda.ie

I would however advise to write to them. The emails above tend to receive a million different things and they often overlook things.

Spouse of Irish National Unit
Residence Division – Unit 6
Immigration Service Delivery
PO Box 12695
Dublin 2

[littlerr]

EDIT: The address in the last comment was for the applications of Spouse of Irish Nationals. I think you should just write to the Burgh Quay registration office since you aren't really submitting any applications.
Burgh Quay Registration Office
Immigration Service Delivery
Department of Justice
13-14 Burgh Quay
Dublin 2 D02 XK70
Ireland

[avta]

Hey,

You can write them an e-mail, but don't expect that they will give you any prompt response.
I just got an answer to the e-mail that was sent 5 months ago.