Taking Argentine Wife For Uk Visit

[semigoodlookin]

I should really clarify that she wasn't deported (which requires one to actually be in the country and is usually accompanied by a criminal case), she was denied entry, complete with a nice stamp with an + through it on her passport.

 

[rrptownley]

First-hand experience here.

In 2010, my Argentine girlfriend and I applied for an unmarried-partner visa to live in the UK — for which we spent five months apart during the application in our respective countries. Upon receiving the news that the visa had been denied to us, we bought a ticket for my girlfriend to fly to the UK to see me on a tourist visa.
Upon arrival in Heathrow she was detained by Border Force and interrogated for two hours before being told she was to be put on the first plane back to Argentina. All this time I was in arrivals waiting for her to appear — she was prohibited from using her phone — the airline nor Heathrow security could tell me where she was. After four hours, a Border Force agent called my mobile and told me what had happened. Two hours after that my girlfriend managed to call me in tears from the bathroom before they put her on the plane back to Argentina.

The next week I had sold up my things in the UK and moved back to Argentina.

After that, when going back to visit my family in the UK as an unmarried couple, we had to travel together and stand in the non-EU-passport queue in Heathrow with a folder full of documentation from her office and University in BA both vouching she had a job and studies to return to, letters from my parents saying they would be accommodating her during her stay in the UK and would be financially responsible for her, return tickets to Argentina, bank slips for proof of funds, and gas bills in both our names, rental contracts etc. to prove that we were a real couple. We were usually delayed and questioned for a while with the Border Force agents disappearing into back rooms with our passports — we had been flagged, so would always be held up from then on — but we always made it through eventually with the extra documentation.

In 2013 we married — nobody, not even those enormous cock-juggling thundercunts in Border Force or the Home Office would rush us — and since then, we proudly waltz through the non-EU line at Heathrow, throw our red/blue passports down in front of the shag-heap passport inspector and high-five each other, making our wedding rings chime in unison.
To be honest, the first passport inspector we came across since we got married was pretty cool. He said he would remove the flag on my wife's passport and went off and did his thing, came back and said after a few weeks we shouldn't be flagged up any more upon arriving to the UK, we now pass straight through with no problems.


TL;DR
So yes, sorry to long-wind it but I am still bitter over the shitty UK immigration policy that has only got worse since we were keel-hauled under it.
Today, we have no problems as a married UK-Argentina couple (her with no EU passport), even after failed residence visa, deportation and being 'flagged' for several years.

 

[semigoodlookin]

First-hand experience here.

In 2010, my Argentine girlfriend and I applied for an unmarried-partner visa to live in the UK — for which we spent five months apart during the application in our respective countries. Upon receiving the news that the visa had been denied to us, we bought a ticket for my girlfriend to fly to the UK to see me on a tourist visa.
Upon arrival in Heathrow she was detained by Border Force and interrogated for two hours before being told she was to be put on the first plane back to Argentina. All this time I was in arrivals waiting for her to appear — she was prohibited from using her phone — the airline nor Heathrow security could tell me where she was. After four hours, a Border Force agent called my mobile and told me what had happened. Two hours after that my girlfriend managed to call me in tears from the bathroom before they put her on the plane back to Argentina.

The next week I had sold up my things in the UK and moved back to Argentina.

After that, when going back to visit my family in the UK as an unmarried couple, we had to travel together and stand in the non-EU-passport queue in Heathrow with a folder full of documentation from her office and University in BA both vouching she had a job and studies to return to, letters from my parents saying they would be accommodating her during her stay in the UK and would be financially responsible for her, return tickets to Argentina, bank slips for proof of funds, and gas bills in both our names, rental contracts etc. to prove that we were a real couple. We were usually delayed and questioned for a while with the Border Force agents disappearing into back rooms with our passports — we had been flagged, so would always be held up from then on — but we always made it through eventually with the extra documentation.

In 2013 we married — nobody, not even those enormous cock-juggling thundercunts in Border Force or the Home Office would rush us — and since then, we proudly waltz through the non-EU line at Heathrow, throw our red/blue passports down in front of the shag-heap passport inspector and high-five each other, making our wedding rings chime in unison.
To be honest, the first passport inspector we came across since we got married was pretty cool. He said he would remove the flag on my wife's passport and went off and did his thing, came back and said after a few weeks we shouldn't be flagged up any more upon arriving to the UK, we now pass straight through with no problems.


TL;DR
So yes, sorry to long-wind it but I am still bitter over the shitty UK immigration policy that has only got worse since we were keel-hauled under it.
Today, we have no problems as a married UK-Argentina couple (her with no EU passport), even after failed residence visa, deportation and being 'flagged' for several years.

Thanks for this, it is comprehansive and mirrors my situation very closely. It seems you had an almost identical situation to me back then, so I know how completely shitty that was for you.

One question. Now that you are married, you say you waltz through the control with no problem. Do they ask for proof of marraige?

 

[rrptownley]

One question. Now that you are married, you say you waltz through the control with no problem. Do they ask for proof of marraige?

We haven't been asked for proof yet, but we do always take our libro and documento from the civil.

 

[Gringoboy]

Remarkable that was Richard and it makes one realise that coming to Argentina under similar circumstances is far more welcoming.

 

[semigoodlookin]

Like my story, Richard's seems like a horror story, but it just goes to show that they do happen.

I was in arrivals for seven hours that day, I had one phonecall with my wife (girlfriend then). I did however contact the immigration office from a public phone and over the course of those hours spoke with the same man maybe four or five times. He offered few concrete explanations as to why they had denied her entry, aside from the fact that they did not believe her intentions for being in the UK.

I repeat we had all information about our stay, hotel, return flight, etc. In one of the most bizzare things, the man on the phone told me I should basically leave my then to be wife and never contact her again. We had been dating for years and had already lived together. I trust her obviously, so when she tells me they treated her like garbage and were even perving on her and making inapproriate remarks about her looks, I believe her. Indeed, on the phone the man even said your girl is very good-looking so I can see why you want to be with her. Completely out of place, but perhaps he was wondering what a semi good looking guy was doing with a good-looking woman

 

[glasgowjohn]

I am one of the lucky ones . Mrs GlasgowJohn has a Spanish passport , so we dont have any problems at all.
UK Immigration does have some strange practices.
Maybe your wife should dress as a Syrian refugees and ask for asylum?
That was meant to be a joke but rereading it I am not so sure....

 

[r2d2]

one of the most bizzare things, the man on the phone told me I should basically leave my then to be wife and never contact her again

I had some negative experiences with immigration officials at airports or border crossings myself in the past (not in the UK though). They can be real idiots. But this is unbelievable. How could he say such a thing? Did you file a complaint?

 

[semigoodlookin]

I had some negative experiences with immigration officials at airports or border crossings myself in the past (not in the UK though). They can be real idiots. But this is unbelievable. How could he say such a thing? Did you file a complaint?

I didn't. I wasn't even sure who I was talking to. It was pretty stressful and I didn't even take note of his name, although he did give it. Anyway, I doubt a complaint would have got me anything but more bullshit.

Paraphrasing of course, but he said something like:

"You seem like a nice guy, you don't need to be going through all this. You go home mate, we will put her back on the plane and you never look back"

I wasn't even angry at the time, I was too gone to even realize how out of place it was. I just explained that no, i wouldn't do that.

 

[Sockhopper]

I'm British + Canadian, and a French resident. I read vile condemnations in British newspapers about the French every day. I'm sickened by it. The UK didn't hate foreigners like this when my husband and I lived there. Oh sure, there were scribbled messages written on London buses' interiors saying, 'Paki, go home' but nowadays it's worse. Some go into venomous rages about how French city bus drivers aren't even educated to speak English and how bus ticket fines are enforced in France to show the British the degree of French hatred toward them! It can be very embarrassing to be British these days at home and abroad A large contingent of them blames foreigners and other EU countries esp France for stopping Britain from being the 'world's best country'. I and many Brits get bashed if we so much as say that another EU country is facilitating our having viable lives outside the UK.

So the UK is polarized in the way the US is.

I almost feel guilty at how easy it was for me to marry my born-there husband 36 years ago. I was welcomed. All I had to suffer was being called a 'Yank' for my first 10 years there. Now I've been British longer than most British have. I'm older than many of them!

For the OP here, there's a terrible account on this forum from maybe 2012 about a Briton landing at Heathrow with his Argentine wife and their 2 pre-school-aged children born in Arg. A British immigration law required a foreign spouse immigrating to prove upon entry that she had employment in the UK that paid her a minimum of 17, 000 sterling/year. She was a full-time care-giver. They were moving to England because he secured while in Arg a great job in the UK paying plenty. So he told Immigration that he'd pay 17,000/year on her behalf because they needed her at home to keep care of their kids. No go! Immigration law set the rules. The wife didn't work. He wasn't allowed to earn it for her.

He couldn't take up his new job!! She and the kids didn't even get to see their husband's/dad's country. The family returned to Arg. So there's a British male who was deprived of his right as a citizen to choose whom he married, to work In the UK and to see his own children in his country of birth. What a despicable way to treat a British citizen. I thought he should have initiated a human rights' review.