UK Entry Refusal

Probably I'm being Captain Obvious here, but can't there be a standard speech, letter or movie for people who are coming into the country on their various visas?

All the information they need to know about the rules, what happens if they violate them, and examples what has happened to other people?

Either at immigration control or maybe it gets sent to people when they start their paperwork?

, or you have miraculously found a way to enter in an engagement or marriage despite there being no visa for the interim between visiting tourist and married/to-be-married settler. Most times this happens to be while people are here on student visas, but again, that means that only those who can afford to pay foreign school fees are allowed to be with their partners through that route.

Or those people who have not a penny to their name, but are willing to take on an extra $30,000 in student loan debt in order to be with their significant other in the UK....like me.    

The problem with getting emotions entangled in the immigration system is that you have to make choices like that all the time.  Garry is right, there are people that are willing to do anything to live in the UK, rules or no rules.  Most people are willing to stop short of disregarding the rules (if even the student loan debt option hadn't been a possibility, it would have been an LDR or possibly a breakup for us) but there are plenty of people who feel so desperate at being separated that they will overstay, they will work illegally, etc.  And the ECO/IO's job is to prevent that from happening in accordance with the law, even though they might personally feel sympathetic.

Probably I'm being Captain Obvious here, but can't there be a standard speech, letter or movie for people who are coming into the country on their various visas?

All the information they need to know about the rules, what happens if they violate them, and examples what has happened to other people?

Either at immigration control or maybe it gets sent to people when they start their paperwork?

Working on it...   

http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=45836.msg645533#msg645533

It gets bogged down in internal UKBA departmental politics.  Questions about layout, language, distribution, dissemination, ownership, plus the whole rigmarole of internal approval...  Then there's the ever-contentious agreement of stakeholders...     :\\\'(

When you sign on to advocacy, you need to be prepared for the looooooooooong haul on prettry much everything. 

But really, the people who get bounced and get all the trouble are rather the people who do not apply for visas beforehand, and rely on the visitors visa at the port of entry, the people who don't even realise they NEED a visa to enter the country, and don't see the famous stamp as a visa... e.g., my fiancee, who had come for work in the UK several times before, without knowing he had actually been granted a visa each time...
Shouldn't any information be distributed before flying into the UK? How about something like this new US ESTA thingy, how about UKBA asks all carriers to send an email at the time of booking passage, making it clear that at the airport in UK they will be examined by a IO and they might or might not be allowed entry into the country under one of these categories etc etc, with links to the online documentation re: each possible visa? Or this is way to difficult to do?

That would cost. And someone would have to pay.

It sounds to me as though you all want the US to become a visa-national country!!!


Vicky

What's a visa-national country?

A country whose nationals need to get prior entry clearance before coming to the UK.

Vicky

A country whose nationals need to get prior entry clearance before coming to the UK.

Vicky

Ok, thanks.

Shouldn't any information be distributed before flying into the UK? How about something like this new US ESTA thingy, how about UKBA asks all carriers to send an email at the time of booking passage, making it clear that at the airport in UK they will be examined by a IO and they might or might not be allowed entry into the country under one of these categories etc etc, with links to the online documentation re: each possible visa? Or this is way to difficult to do?

This would leave some very powerful stakeholders outraged.  They would be howling for a new government.  

Bear in mind that only 1 in 2,000 or so passengers from the US gets bounced.  That's not enough to bring about forward controls for a country we are friendly with.

I think it is incumbent on anyone visiting another country to know what the rules are...I would never go to Russia, for example, without reading up on their rules for visitors first.  I think with the UK, the rest of Western Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean, Americans (not all Americans obviously, but a lot of them) tend to just hop on a plane and not worry about it too much. That attitude isn't the best, honestly and people should be more proactive about these things.

That being said, I totally agree that it is unintuitive that the definition of "work" includes volunteering or the definition of "study" includes taking some casual dance classes.  Things like that should be spelled out for people in an easy to read format, but I don't think it's necessary to spoon feed it to them- a simple page on UKBA's website or UKVisas under the visitors section that explains some of those tricky nuances would be adequate, IMO.  At that point it's up to personal responsibility for someone to read what is out there, and if they don't, well that's unfortunate. 

Producing a webpage for non-visa national visitors would be easy as pie, but I'm not sure of what the chances of getting UKBA to add something like that are.

Producing a webpage for non-visa national visitors would be easy as pie, but I'm not sure of what the chances of getting UKBA to add something like that are.

Why should UKBA do something like that when there's...

http://londonelegance.com/transpondia/usuk/

 

as wonderful as Transpondia is, garry, it's not an official UK govenment site.  If I was going to find out what another country's rules are prior to visiting it for the first time, I would head straight for that country's immigration website or embassy/consulate website, and wouldn't even think to look for something like transpondia unless it wasn't simply a visit and I was looking for in-depth visa information on studying or moving there permanently.

The other thing is that there are so many sites out there which have inaccurate info that if I just wanted a quick answer from a trusted source and I was starting from a place of complete ignorance I would be leery of any other website other than something produced by the government of the country involved.  Third party websites which are accurate (like, ahem, UKY!) are great, but only after you've been there long enough to evaluate whether you're likely to be getting the right info or not.

Guys...  Three clicks from the UKBA website: http://www.bia.homeoffice.gov.uk/visitingtheuk/visitors/eligibility/

Visiting the UK, General Visitors, How to Come to the UK.

I then googled "Visiting the UK" and the UKBA website came up at the top of the link, one link into the UKBA site mentioned above and there is a link there directly to the page I mention above.  The page makes it VERY clear what a general visitor can and cannot do in the UK.

Exclusive of the bloody obvious, I agree with Vicky, people sound like they want the US to become a visa national country to save ourselves from our own stupidity.

kitson- I just went to that page a few hours ago.  You're right, it says all the things you're not allowed to do, but my beef is that unless you *know* that volunteering = work, it's not clear from that list that say, you can't volunteer.  That sort of thing is the stuff that causes bounces and refusals sometimes and it should be made more explicit.

Don't people refer to 'volunteer work' rather than just 'volunteering'?

Vicky