Immigration woes
Hi. This is going to be long. It will most likely get angry and filled with a bunch of cursing. It’s been an extremly stressful time and the experience was one of the worst. Riding on all of this was a possible (but unlikely) deportation away from my husband, our kittens, and our happy life together. The good news is that eventually I did recieve it. I do want to thank every single person who liked my products enough to purchase which allowed me to afford this very overly priced piece of paper glued into my passport.
Last week I had an appointment to get my indefinate leave to remain. After 1h 30min traveling there, 30min in a que, I was told to come back with more documentation.
The writing of the application goes as follows:
Please provide 20 items from at least 5 sources of the kind listed above spread evenly over the past 2 years. As many as possible should be addressed jointly in both your names. If you do not have enough items in your joint names, you may provide items addressed to each of you individually if they show the same address and you provide roughly the same number for each of you.
I gathered up 50+ documents from both of us. Personally, I figured that the more the better correct? So, I’m standing in this room and a lady behind some glass is sorting and going through all of it and she just keeps shaking her head.
Where in that quote does it say you must have 5 different types for each person for each year?! It doesn’t. For joint stuff we have tenancy agreements and council tax. I had 3 payslips from 3 separate companies, but according to them it only counts as 1. He had 3 utility bills from 3 different companies but that counts as 3!
I actually asked her whats the point of not having the application explain how anal retentive it needs to be? Wouldn’t it really make their work that much easier? She said that I’d probably get accepted if I mailed it in because they have more time to look it over and then call me if they had any questions. Wtf! I’m standing right there, ask me some fucking questions. Why am I paying £450 more for this “premium” service? Oh yeah, because I’m traveling in Aug and it takes 3weeks - 5months to get your passport back if you mail it in.
I made a new appointment - 20th of June - and gathered the papers more obsessive then they are. 5 separate types for each of us plus the 2 joint documents. I put June 05 - June 06 in one envelope and June 06 - 07 in another. And hoped that all the rest of the paperwork was correct.
Yesterday, we woke up early (yuck) to leave the flat by 11am. Got to the home office in Croyden (yuck) by 12:30pm. Everything was going smooth. The que for security was short, as was the que for the first phase of taking to people through glass. What is with the ques for this country? It’s seriously driving me mental. Anyways.. the woman looked at only the 05-06 stack of docs and sent us up to pay. Yay! Another que for the payment, which took quite a while but I already had my number (A195) so I wasn’t too worried. Next up was sitting on very uncomfortable chairs waiting for my number to be called.
1pm - They call number A140. My appointment was at 1pm. They had a line of 22 windows to go to for your “interview” in which you shout out personal information probably just to entertain the bored people behind you waiting their turn. What was rather discourging was the large amount waiting vrs the very small amount of windows open. I guess lots of people out to lunch. The numbers got called rather slowly then someone gets on the intercom to appologise - they are experiencing a 1 hour delay due to “technical difficulties.” Oh hell.
I try to read. But I think I’m some sort of magnate for people with screaming babies. They just like to sit next to me. This was a pretty large room but for some reason whenever someone with a drooling baby went to find a seat, they decided the crazy looking american with lots of tattoos reading a very thick book was the best place. Then the baby would scream. Then we would move. Then another couple would come in and sit right near us. Now I have no real issue with people having kids. Well except there are some people who just shouldn’t breed, I think if you can’t afford to feed yourself you have no right to have kids. Then there are those who think certain video games, movies, or whatever should be banned for everyone just because they can’t teach their children right from wong. I really do hate the “what about the children” crap. If you don’t think the world is a good place for children, do what I do, don’t breed. Yep that’s right I’m not popping out any kids cause the world just sucks that bad. I don’t feel comfortable about bringing in someone to a world where they might starve cause we killed all the bees, will get persecuted if their geneitcs makes them gay, be fed over processed “food” that’s not actually food, and most importantly have to deal with a world of forced “normality” instead of being who they are.
Anyways.. it’s 2pm and they just got into the A180’s. Everything is looking better. Then the fire alarm goes off. We are herded out of the building and made to stand in the car park. Yay for smoking time, but boo for this further delay. And another thing - I’ve never in my life been surrounded by so many chavs, but it’s Cryoden so can you expect anything different?
2:45 pm - They start letting in the emplyees floor by floor, starting with 16.
3pm - they tell the “members of the public” to stand off to the right and go back into the car park. Eventually a que forms down the sidewalk to the right - a very long one. Then we are herded across the street screaming at us to show our ticket - the piece of paper you get for passing phase 1. They walk us into a huge room and put us into what seems like 3 ques but turns out to be 1 long one that wraps around. This didn’t look good as we were in the far left which looked like the end. They then pull everyone who hadn’t been upstairs and put them in a separate que. We finally get close to the last line and they stop letting ours in and let all the people who haven’t paid yet in. Bloody hell. Why the fuck didn’t they make us line up via appointment time? I know - 1st que is anyone before 1pm. 2nd - Before 2pm. 3rd anyone after 2pm. Oh wait, that’s too logical.
4pm - we finally get back upstairs. I go up to the customer service window and ask if my number has been called. He hardly looks at it and says no. Fine. I sit back down.
4:30pm - They are calling number A210 +. Fuck. I know it had been called. Oh fuck. I go back up and get the guy to actually look me up in the system. Yes, I’d been called at 3:25. But I was in the bloody que. He tells me to be patient, I’ll be seen, just sit back down. But they move on to A220+. Great.
5:15pm - My number is called. Only 4h 15min late. Since we’d been in the system for so long, we hadn’t actually eaten anything other then crisps from the vending machine. I’m tired, hungry, stressed, and cranky. I had the woman my paperwork. She comments that it’s the first time anyone had sorted them by year, and very thankful. Everything is going fine. But oh wait! The 06-07 stack stops at March 07. That’s a problem. Fuck. I say please look at the date of the tenancy agreement, it expires Sept ‘07. The utilites are the latest ones because they come quarterly, the June ones haven’t come. She looks at how haggered we are and explains she’ll speak to her manager about it. Next up is a big gap in our docs during the time the cunt downstairs was stealing our mail, which we explain.
Proof of funds. This I had been worried about anyways. I’ve been working SL mostly since last summer with a few editing jobs scattered in. But I’m self employed in both places. I don’t get offical pay slips or P60s (W4s for my US readers). But this is my fault entirely. I have a UK bank account but I just don’t use it very much, only for the very small amount of things that I can’t use my visa debit card for. It started because I had to keep my US account for student loan payments, as they won’t do direct debit from international banks. I’m shit with remembering to send checks so it was just easier. Then I send a lot of presents via amazon.com to family, especially spoiling my neices and nephews. I can’t use my debit card here for that. Then I found out that just about everywhere will take my US visa card and my bank doesn’t charge extra. I can use bank ATMs and I’m not charged a fee. While it sounds very confusing, it’s actually a lot easier. I also use my US credit cards, which I can pay with my US bank account online. I have fucking great credit in the states so the interest rate is lower then the advertised rate for credit cards here. If you think credit cards are a scam in the states, you haven’t seen nothing til you see the interest rates here. I think virgin is still adversting 17% interest rate like that’s a good number. Then we have the issue of buying flights to America. We can use UK debit and credit cards for the big airlines to get to the large cities, but not the part going from Chicago to Nebraska. So, in actuality its the UK banks that are forcing me to take my business elsewhere.
She was worried about this part also. I didn’t bring bank statements (she wanted 3 months worth) I brought 2 years of hubbies P60s and his latest pay slip. I printed out all my paypal payment recieved histories, printed US bank statements, and my excel spreadsheets for SL and editing payments. I haven’t filed taxes for this year - due in Sept - my accountant (aka my brother) is helping me with them in Aug. But I did bring my form in for last year. The woman was rather upset about this. I logically explained that 2 years of finacial information is far better than the past 3 months as it shows steady funds. It’s like you can see the effect of the brain cogs turning when logic and procedure clashes. Again she had to ask her manager.
Another point of worry that proved true. At Heathrow my passport was stollen right before getting on the plane to see my family Dec ‘05. Words of advice - 1. photocopy or take digital pics of your passport, any visa inside, and all the stamps you get when entering the country. 2. When tired don’t just assume that all countries need to see identification at security like the US does. If you do, hold on to your passport instead of putting it in your pocket. I’m not a morning person, unless the morning is 2am-4am and I’m still awake. I’m craky, bitchy and mostly out of it when I have to wake up when “normal” people do, or really any time before midday. Was I stupid to put my passport in my pocket? Probably. I just wasn’t thinking about it. At the airport I spoke to 4 police officers who wouldn’t even tell me where to file a report. We ran over to the US embassy to get a replacement passport, because United rebooked us for the next day. There I was able to file a police report (which they kept) and got a brand new one within 3 hours. I was told that entering the UK 2 weeks later wouldn’t be an issue because they’s just look up my visa and stamp my passport correctly. It really wasn’t that easy. I sat there for 2 hours because I wasn’t in the system. The immigration officer helping me was so nice though, he ran down to baggage to speak with my husband and called the UK consolate in Chicago where it was issued. So, imagine my suprize when yesterday I wasn’t in the system.
Out of pure luck - or stroke of genuis - last week with my brand new printer (the brilliant HP photosmart D1760 with a separate 4×6 photo paper tray and lab quality prints), I printed off the email I recieved saying my origional visa had been accepted and that it was in the mail. It had a reference number on it, so I thought it might be useful if I ran into a snag. She was rather upset that I didn’t bring the police report, so I showed her the printed “this is a temporary replacement for a lost or stollen passport” on the last page with the US London embassy stamp. With those, she was able to find my correct info in the computer. Yay!
After all that mess, she left to have a word with her manager. I’m not certain if my logic won the battle or empathy over took “procedure.” After what felt like hours, she came back and granted me my indefinate leave to remain. Yay!
6:30pm - They finally print out my visa and glue it into my passport.
8pm - We finally walk in the door. What a bloody terrible day!
