Apologies in advance for the long post. I am trying to give the full picture as succinctly as possible.
My situation:
I am a British citizen. I moved to Ireland in January 2018. I am single with no remaining familial ties in the UK.
I have a permanent job in Ireland and a rental apartment.
I own an apartment in the UK which is currently being rented out via a letting agent. The rent will cover the mortgage and service charges.
I have, in effect, permanently moved to Ireland.
I would like to bring my elderly parents, both Indian citizens, to live with me in Ireland permanently.
I work in construction. I genuinely have no intention of leaving Ireland as long as the construction industry is booming here. With the falling pound and improving pay in Ireland and despite the Irish housing crisis, I am financially better off now in Ireland than I was in the UK even three months ago. So we will not be racing against Brexit to attempt a ‘Surinder Singh (SS)’ back to the UK.
My parents’ situation:
They are in their late 70s.
They own their house in India.
I have regularly sent them money over the past 3-4 years to supplement their pensions.
They have a son in India who lives in a different city, at a distance of over 900 km from them. He does not provide monetary or emotional support to them. He is married with children and maintains a separate household from our parents.
The story so far:
My parents have visited me in the UK several times since 2005. They have always returned to India before the expiry of their visit visas (of various durations) every time. Until….
About 7 years ago, we visited another European country together to avoid them staying in the UK for more than 180 days on a visit visa and contravene its conditions. On our return to the UK, we were stopped at a UK port. My parents’ passports were confiscated and they were going to be deported. We appealed this action by the immigration officer and won the case. My parents subsequently returned to India of their own volition, after staying a further 5 months in the UK.
But since then, they have been refused visiting visas to the UK on multiple occasions – citing the reason that they will end up staying illegally in the UK long-term.
About three years ago, I had tried to bring them to the UK using the Surinder Singh route. This failed too. I unsuccessfully exhausted the appeals process at the time.
In order to get a visiting visa for the European country I was using for the SS route, my parents had to show savings in India. This fact was then used by the Home Office to argue that my parents were not dependent on me. However, this money has now been spent towards repairs to their house following a natural calamity.
The other reasons for which SS route failed were – I was not working in my original profession in the 2nd European country and we did not live together as a family there long enough – about three months only. The former reason cannot be raised against me in Ireland and the latter does not apply as we are not attempting SS route.
The plan now:
Apply for an Irish Type C Family visit visa for my parents.
If/when successful, apply for European Family Residence Card on their arrival in Ireland.
IMHO, the challenges:
My parents have to show sufficient ties in India to be granted a visiting visa. But then, the evidence provided for this can/will be used against their application for Residence Cards.
How do I manage this?
How can I demonstrate to Irish visa officials that this is not a back-door way of trying to get my parents into the UK via Ireland? Their previous UK visit visa refusals and the failed SS route attempt don’t look good.
It so happens that my parents’ passports expire soon. They will get new passports. I realise this is devious and risky – but will we be able to get away with not mentioning previous passports and migration history?
The fact that I was/am regularly sending my parents money to support their expenses was not taken into account as dependency by the UK Immigration Tribunals. Would Irish immigration toe a similar line? How else can I strengthen the dependency argument?
Should I also be considering other sticking points that I am heretofore unaware of?
I am grateful for any pointers, comments, suggestions, recommendations.
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