A non-mopey post!!
Well ok, it's a little mopey, but only in the sense that it could be a genuinely tricky situation
All right, so as many of you know, I'm Australian, but I've been living in the UK for the past 3 years, except for being in Japan last year. What you may not know is that I'm here on a student visa. My two brothers have dependency visas, meaning that they got in based on being dependents of my dad, who is a British citizen. At the time, we were told that I could not get the same visa because I had turned 18 six months prior.
So today dad had a chat with some immigration expert, concerning my staying in the country after October next year, when my visa expires. it turns out that my brothers will be able to get British passports at the end of next year. I, on the other hand, will have to stay in university after I graduate to extend my visa, then I'll have to try and get a job where my company supports my getting another visa, on the grounds that nobody who is a citizen of any country in the EU can do what I'm hired for.
And sadly, I'm not that special. This essentially means that I'm kind of fucked.
And the worst part is that we could have apparently appealed my not getting a dependency visa in the first place, on the grounds that I was still a dependent. I could have gotten a british passport by the end of next year too. Instead I'm going to be fighting quite valiantly for the right to stay in England with my family.
I cried this afternoon. Because it's so unfair. My brothers are going to have no trouble at all, whereas I'm going to be struggling to stay here for ten years in total, and even after that I'd only get indefinite leave to remain. I still wouldn't be a citizen. I'll still have to line up in the foreigner queue at the airport while the rest of my family skip happily through the British passport section.
And this is all over six months of age digression, which it turns out may not have mattered at all.
My parents and I plan to appeal this, on the grounds of us being incorrectly advised. Every single time we've asked about this, we've been given a different story, and immigration is really not the sort of thing that people can afford to be wishy-washy over the facts of.
I honestly wouldn't be so upset about this if my brothers were in the same boat. I'm really happy that it's going to be so easy for them, bit after they get their passports I'll be the odd one out.
Again.
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