Bringing children into UK - please help

Hi,

I have been lurking on here for awhile but decided it was time to say hi and ask for help.

I am a UK citizen who is marrying a US citizen in 3 weeks (in the US). Once we are married she will be applying for a settlement visa, and i hope we have that one all under control (fingers crossed).

The thing is, she has 3 children from a previous marriage (all US citizens) and we are confused as to what forms (and sections) we need to fill out in order to obtain a settlement visa for each of them (all under age of 12). By the way she does have full legal custody to them and once we are married I ill be seeking adoption.

Please help.

Stephen

Welcome to the site, and good luck with your wedding and the visa process .

Basically, she needs to apply for a visa for each of the children in the same way she will be applying for her own visa - on the online form, instead of selecting the Settlement -> Wife option, she needs to select Settlement -> Child or Other Dependent of Settled Person and then fill out each application from there. In terms of sponsorship, you will be considered the sponsor for each child (because you are the UK citizen and they can only qualify for a visa if they are coming as the dependent of a UK citizen) so your name and details need to be put on their applications, the same as for your wife's application.

Each visa costs the same: $1200... so it will be a total cost of $4800 for all four visas. Each child will need their own passport for their visa to be attached into and she also needs to be able to prove she has sole responsibility for all three children (if she has full custody, I believe this will be enough to prove sole responsibility). Apart from that, there isn't that much difference between her application and theirs. The children must also attend a biometrics appointment as well, although I believe that children under 5 are exempt from the biometrics requirement.

All of the applications should be sent together in the same package, but if your wife wants to use the settlement priority service to get the visas processed more quickly (within 15 working days instead of up to 3 months), she will need to purchase it for each application ($300 plus tax per application). The settlement priority service can be purchased on the Worldbridge website, but it must be done only on the day that the applications will be mailed to the consulate.

Hi and thanks.

Thank you for the advice. So basically when i fill the form in online (Vaf4a) then i select the 'child or other dependent of settled person option'?

Do i also need a Sponsorship Undertaking Form (SU07) form?

Once i do this online then it asks all the same information as my wife to be's application. Things like marital status, job etc. What do i do about this?

cheers

stephen

Hi and thanks.

Thank you for the advice. So basically when i fill the form in online (Vaf4a) then i select the 'child or other dependent of settled person option'?

Yes, that's right (although, technically it should be your wife filling out the application, not you, because she is the visa applicant and is applying on behalf of her children) .

Do i also need a Sponsorship Undertaking Form (SU07) form?

No, I don't believe you do, at least, not if you are applying in the US... you just need to fill out the online application and provide a letter of support for their applications (see the last two posts of this thread: http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=66089.msg927268#msg927268).

Once i do this online then it asks all the same information as my wife to be's application. Things like marital status, job etc. What do i do about this?

I don't know for sure, as I've never seen the actual online application (I can't get past the first couple of pages because I am not a visa applicant and don't have the information to fill in), but I would guess that instead of marital status and job, it would have a section for information about the child/dependent.

If you look at the VAF4A paper application, it says that section 8.4 should only be filled out if you are applying as a fiance/spouse/partner and 8.5 should only be filled out if you are applying as a dependent (not a spouse). I would guess that the online applications will be adjusted accordingly, so that only the relevant questions are displayed for each application.

You can always do a run-through of the online applications before you actually apply, to see what questions are on it - just don't submit it yet (the application can be saved for up to 7 days... and each time you log on, you can re-save it for another 7 days, but it will be lost if you don't log on for more than a week).

I'm just mentioning this because of the thread's dealing with dependent children...  In the case of a refusal and subsequent appeal, a separate appeal must be lodged for the primary and then separate appeals for dependent covered in the refusal.  Incredible to relate, we've seen the primary win on appeal and the dependents having to reapply because they did not appeal.  At 900+ dollars a pop, that can start to add up.

What makes the whole thing worrysome is that in the upcoming regime, appeals are going to cost the applicant.  And if UKBA appeals the tribunal's  decision, applicants are going to have to pay for that too.     And no refunds for successful appeals. 

Veterans should add this to advice.

Editorial.  The regime leaves UKBA with the option of making continued appeals against tribunal decisions until the applicant's resources are depleted.  And what that means is that UKBA and the applicant do not have equal access to justice because UKBA can simply take the money from the government coffers.  That part worries me...

The MOJ is sponsoring a consultation on it right now.

Thanks for the help, however i am still struggling to understand the online form as it does not seem to blank out the most obvious questions when selecting the 'dependent' option (such as marital status, when we met and the like)

Oh starting to pull my hair out now.

The online application is used for every single UK visa so there are questions that may just not fit perfectly, but the two questions you mentioned are relevent to your situation. Think about it, their marital status is important, because if they were married then they couldn't be a dependent. Just because you don't think it's 'obvious' doesn't mean that it's not relevent.

As WebyJ says, the questions *could* be relevant (you could have children under the age of 18 that were married or had a job, etc.).  Just answer them as 'single' or 'none' (or whatever is applicable for that child).

"The regime leaves UKBA with the option of making continued appeals against tribunal decisions until the applicant's resources are depleted."

What a sentence...