Returning Resident to UK
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I was born in the US and moved to the UK when I was 3. My Mother married a british man who raised me and is the only thing I have ever known as a Father. I lived in England for 15 years with Indefinite Leave to remain. When I was 18 I moved back to the US to attend University and met an American man who later became my husband. In order to keep my UK resident staus I could not be out of the UK for a period of greater than 2 years. My residency lapsed when I was pregnant with my first child back in 1999. I had no issues with this at the time as I was happy in the US and went on to have 3 children born in the US so figured the US is where I would be staying. Well 12 years on and I am EXTREMELY homesick. My entire family still lives in the UK (my parents, my sisters, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins etc) I have 1 family member in the US my Mums sister). A couple of months ago I applied for my returning residency visa after my husband finally agreed to move to the UK. I applied at the end of November but already had plans to visit back home for my 30th birthday and Christmas, so was waiting until I arrived back in the US to mail my supporting documents and passport. BIG MISTAKE!!! Upon arrival in the UK my entire family and I were detained for almost 7 hours and then denied enrty in to the country because they thought we were going to try and stay illegally because I had applied for my visa already. If my intentions were to do anything illegal I wouldn't have even bothered paying 400 dollars for the visa. They ended up agreeing to let us stay for 4 days after speaking to my parents there. Then we had to miss Christmas and come back and were told to not come back until I have my visa. Now I am faced with the process being much more difficult and possibly denied because we were denied entry. I am having to pay immigration specialists to help me with my application but I am very unsure and it is moving very slowly. I have been back in the US for just over 5 weeks and am not much closer to having the issue resolved. Anyone have any advice or been through a similar experience? Thanks so much!
