The irony is killing me.

[nanila]

The UK immigration rules for non-EEA migrants changed on 6 April. The changes were pretty much as expected, with the closure of the Tier 1 (General) migrant scheme, under which I've been in the UK for the past five years, and the introduction of caps on Tier 2 migrant numbers.

Fortunately for me, the residency period for settlement/permanent residency/indefinite leave to remain (ILR), was not extended beyond five years. I can apply for ILR as soon as I qualify, which is well before my current visa expires. I am lucky. I'm certain others are not.

I decided to phone up the UK Border Agency to check whether or not I could apply for ILR as the unmarried partner of a British national. I can't, because my visa is for work and not for shacking up with an Englishman.

After I hung up, I realised that if, the last time I'd renewed my visa, I'd applied to be the unmarried partner of a UK citizen instead of a highly skilled migrant, I would have qualified after two years of living with him. Which means that I could have submitted my application this June instead of this October.

Oh, immigration rules. Your logic, it is, well. Not.

Comments

[ex_pinetree696]

As bad as applying for PR/ILR may be in the UK, you can probably imagine what it's like over here in China. I must have called the office of the guy who deals with it twenty times in the past month and no one has ever answered the phone. Going there to see him in person also yields nothing. I'm starting to think this guy doesn't even exist!

[nanila]

I find it scarily probable that he doesn't!

[surpassingly]

Ugh, I'm sorry. Visas... sigh.

[nanila]

They seem to be deliberately designed to stress you out as much as possible.

[sfred]

I have no words for how ridiculous this is.

[nanila]

Its silliness ranking has to be at least ten Chaplins.

[alwayswondered]

Wow. We've come so far in the last few centuries. :| I'm sorry everything is ridiculous.

[nanila]

At least the law that allowed exclusively maternal claims to citizenship has finally been done away with (as of, er, 2006). Otherwise, if the bloke & I had babies while still not hitched, the children couldn't have claimed British citizenship.