New Video - Home Office Family Policy: Coronavirus Concessions
In this short video I look at the Coronavirus Concessions contained in the Home Office Family Policy ‘Family life (as a partner or parent), private life and exceptional circumstances’ (Version 10.0 18 August 2020).
The concessions at page 94 of this policy document focus on breaks in continuous lawful immigration status/residence requirements due to COVID-19:
Coronavirus (COVID-19) concessions
A commitment has been made to ensure family and private life applicants are not unduly affected by reasons beyond their control due to COVID-19. The pandemic may have caused disruption to travel plans, causing breaks in continuous lawful immigration status/residence requirements.
Due to the impact of COVID-19, some applicants seeking to start, extend or complete a route to settlement on the basis of family or private life, may be unable to meet the immigration status/continuous residence eligibility requirements of Appendix FM, due to COVID-19. This may be due to travel restrictions, closure or inaccessibility to a visa application centre (VAC) or illness.
Ordinarily, there is no flexibility for you to exercise discretion in allowing the lawful immigration status and continuous residence eligibility requirements to be met. However, you may exercise discretion to allow an applicant to start, stay on (extend – apply for further leave) or complete a route to settlement despite them being in the UK as a visitor or with leave of six-months or less, in-country or overseas for a short period without leave, where it is shown that they were not able to travel or apply due to COVID-19 between March and 31 August 2020.
You can disregard a short period of time spent overseas where leave to enter or remain expired and an applicant could not return to the UK to renew their leave due to COVID-19, provided an applicant extends their leave and/or makes an application for leave to enter as soon as practicable. The break in continuous residence may be because a VAC was closed or inaccessible, and the applicant was unable to apply for further leave to enter – where they should have been applying for leave to remain, or the applicant returned to the UK as a visitor or following a visa waiver or carrier waiver in order to complete an application for further leave once back in the UK. In some cases, an applicant with leave, applying for further leave or ready to apply for settlement, may not have been able to travel back to the UK, but instead was able to access a VAC to apply for indefinite leave. Appendix FM would not ordinarily allow for a period of leave to enter or remain, followed by another period of leave to enter in order to be eligible to apply for settlement after five-years. However, where the application was made in order to maintain a continuous period of lawful residence, you may take that period of leave to enter into account.
You may disregard a period of leave outside the Immigration Rules granted by Border Force to allow an applicant to re-enter the UK following a period of being stranded overseas due to COVID-19 when their leave expired between 1 March 2020 and 31 August 2020.