Month: August 2013

No visa required? Too good to be true?

BBC News Article

So what is it? The Surinder Singh route, essentially, is a way of bringing a non-EEA member into the UK. That person needs to live and work as if they were a European: pay social security, go on the census, pay bills in their name, pay rent in their name, have their own bank account etc. This needs to be for a minimum of 3 months, but I assume the longer you do this, the more grounds you have. You then bring back all of the evidence for the things above and present it to the Border Agency when you arrive at the airport. It may seem extreme or even like cheating, but it is a legitimate way of entering the UK without a visa. It might be hard in the current climate to find a job, especially in Spain, Portugal or Italy, but it doesn’t state that it has to be a good job. Anyone could put up with a bar job or cleaning for 3 months if it meant something better at the end of it, surely?

The Surinder Singh route, how it came about:

Mr Singh was an Indian citizen who worked with his British wife in Germany for several years. The couple then returned to the UK where he was allowed to reside with his wife on the basis of the UK immigration rules (limited leave to remain). The couple then divorced. The UK authorities decided to curtail his leave to remain and order his removal from the UK. Mr Singh challenged the decision before the UK courts, which then decided to refer the matter for an opinion from the EU Court of Justice on whether Mr Singh had a right to reside in the UK on the basis of EU law. (Taken from here)

The UKBA also gives good advice here, although they make it sound less likely than it actually is.

Personally, I will still try the visa route, but if the £18,000 salary thing is true, then we will be going to Spain where I’ve worked before, the trouble is, it will be hard to find him a job, especially as he doesn’t speak the lingo. Fingers crossed it won’t come to that and they will accept us without having to “cheat”. Though what a great method it is!!

True Stories: Canada and Croatia 1998/2012

Enes was my first boyfriend way back when I was 16. I went to Croatia to visit family and met him through a friend who told me there was a cute guy she knew. That night I had my first kiss. We became inseparable. I saw him every day to go swimming and every night to go out or hang out at his place with our friends. When I went to the coast to visit my mom, after three days he dragged 2 friends to hitchhike with him to go see me. When he had to do boring stuff like drive to other towns I would be severely unhappy if he didn’t take me with him for the drive.
The summer ended and there were a few letters and calls. But, it was just way too hard.
The next time I went to Croatia I became friends with his little brother, Daniel, as we bonded over having to get over someone. It took me about 5 years to get over Enes. Enes was with the person he would eventually marry and be with in total for about 13 years. It’s kind of pathetic to admit this, but I started using nickname for brother with Daniel (that I still use today) which is like saying bro, because I was convinced that Enes and I would get back together and get married one day and Daniel would be my brother anyways.
And over the years I would have this fantasy that Enes would just show up in Canada looking for me. However, that did not happen. My feelings faded. I stopped having that fantasy and got married.
Fast fast forward to 2012. I had been married for 2 years and it ended badly. Little did I know, on the other side of the planet, Enes’ 5 year marriage (13 year relationship) ended less than 2 days before mine. I decided to visit family in Croatia to get away. I hadn’t been there in 5 years. I e-mailed some of my friends and my friend Natalia informed me that Enes just got out of his marriage too. She teased me and told me that we might end up together again. Which I told her was crap, he had probably forgotten about after so much time.
When I went to visit Daniel in Zagreb (the capital of Croatia) he told me about how badly Enes’ marriage ended. It was so bad that I cried. So, I offered to go talk to Enes because we were both going through the same thing and I could understand him better than some others would. Danijel gave me his number.
A couple days later I texted him in the morning. He thought that someone was playing a trick on him, but he invited me to go for coffee and a swim in the river that afternoon. It made me smile because of the memories I had of swimming together 14 years earlier.
We talked about what happened in our lives in the last 14 years since we had been together. We talked about that beautiful summer we spent together in 1998. And during that course of that conversation we figured out that our marriages ended within 48 hours of each other.
Then we drove to the river Glina, but I was disappointed that a family was already there and we wouldn’t have any privacy to keep talking. Enes suggested that we cross the river to get to a nicer sandy spot, and he gallantly offered his hand so that I wouldn’t fall or lose balance while walking through the water. It was sweet. On the other side we sat on my towel and Enes just stared at my face. No other place at all.
After talking for quite a while he suggested we get in the water. He offered his hand to me again, but this time when he took it our fingers were intertwined. After we crossed the river back to the other side, he asked if we could still sit there for a while and after a while longer he asked me “Can I kiss you?”. I looked down and quietly said “No,” because I was thinking that since I just got out of a marriage it was too soon. He then said “Can I?” and I said with the same quiet voice “Yes.” And then the world changed. We kissed and hugged and held each other and that was it. From then on we were back together and it took no time at all to fall in love again.
Unfortunately, I had planned to go to Spain a few days later for a month and that is when we started using Skype. I was having trouble sleeping since my marriage ended and couldn’t sleep without having some movie continuously play on my laptop. So, he told me that no matter how late I came home from a night out in Spain, to call him and then we’d go on Skype and he’d talk to me until I fell asleep. And he did that every night no matter if I cam home at 11pm or 5 am.
I was back in Croatia for 2 weeks before going back to Canada. We spent as much time together as possible.
After I left we became Skype addicts. We like to call it living together over the internet. We often had a connection open for more than 48 hours at a time. I would study for a long distance course I had with him sleeping on my screen. We’d talk while we cooked and cleaned. I’d ask him to gently push me to do things I needed like my readings or studying and he would. We also talked a lot about things we need to be happy and places we could compromise for each other.
I went back in May after 6 months apart. And we filmed a kiss almost every day. I caused a bit of shock in my family by staying with a man I wasn’t married to instead of with family. But, it didn’t matter, I didn’t want to be apart from him for any time I didn’t need to be. I came back in August and now we are desperately looking for ways for him to come here. No one has ever listened to me, cared about my feelings, or loved me like him. And, over those years we weren’t together I thought I was damaged somehow because although I had feelings for other people, somehow they weren’t as strong as they had been for him way back when. When we got back together they all came back.

See their Kiss ME Project here