I'm a citizen of the UK, as well as an American Permanent Resident (Green Card) holder, currently residing in the USA. My wife is a US citizen with a child from a prior relationship. I'm going to apologise in advance for referring to them as "the child", but to protect them I'm not going to use any further identifying information.
The child is under 18, and will be for some time. The child does not want anything to do with their biological father.
We're looking into the possibility of emigrating to the UK as a family. Under normal circumstances, I understand that this would involve a spousal visa that listed the child as a dependent, but regrettably I am not their father. Does anyone know if this matters? Would we need the consent of the child's biological father to apply for a visa for the child under British immigration law? Would we need formal legal custody to complete this process?
I understand that we're unable to travel outside the US with the child without their biological father's consent. This is likely to be withheld, which means that we cannot travel to the UK until the child is, well, an adult. As far as I can see, this leaves a narrow window, approaching the child's eighteenth birthday, during which we could apply and still lawfully travel after the application was approved. I have a few questions here, though... first of all, is this a valid approach, or have I gone off the deep end? Second, what happens if the visa application is sent back by virtue of missing paperwork or some other technical issue - does that mean disaster, or does the application continue to include the child until such time as it is either approved or declined?
Many thanks for any assistance you can provide, although I suspect that we will probably need to hire an immigration lawyer.
