DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, IMMIGRATION LAW AND - Rights of Women

(b) They have adequate accommodation or the means of obtaining it, but cannot meet their
other essential living needs.
The applicant will have to show destitution as part of her application for leave to remain. This is
likely to be very difficult. The UKBA Guidance believes that it will be ‘extremely rare’ for an
applicant to be destitute. This is because people granted leave under the 10-year route will have
permission to work. If they are granted leave to remain as a partner their partner will be expected
to support them, and the partner will already have access to public funds. The Guidance states that
an applicant claiming to be destitute ‘will need to provide evidence, including of their financial
position, demonstrating that they do not have access to adequate accommodation or any means of
obtaining it (other than from a local authority or charity) or they cannot meet their other essential
living needs (other than from a local authority or charity)’.
• Other important requirements
For all applicants admitted to the ’10-year route’, their applications for indefinite leave to remain
(ILR) must show that they have passed the relevant English language test and have no unspent
criminal convictions (see 2. Important new rules on criminality, below).
However, if someone still has unspent convictions, or cannot pass the language test, they may be
granted a further 30 months’ leave to remain.
special cases:
Those with current ‘partner’ visas (spouse, civil partner, unmarried partner) will continue on
the current ‘settlement route’ to ILR (27 months’ leave followed by an application for ILR). But
anyone applying for ILR after October 2013 will need to show English language to level B1 and not
have any unspent criminal convictions.
Those who have already been granted Discretionary Leave will continue to be dealt with
under that policy through to indefinite leave if they qualify (normally through 2 periods of 3
years’ Discretionary Leave). But anyone applying for ILR after October 2013 will need to show
English language to level B1 and not have any unspent criminal convictions.
Victims of Domestic Violence who would qualify under the existing Rules (have, or have had,
a spouse visa, the marriage broken down during that spouse visa because of domestic violence)
do not face any new requirements. The Domestic Violence rule is now in the new Appendix FM of
the Rules, in section DVILR 11 .
A child born after leave to remain is granted to a parent, who can currently apply for leave in
line with the parent, does not face any new requirements and continue to apply under para 305 of
part 8 of the existing Rules. (There is no specified form on which to apply for leave in line for a
child and the UKBA has no clear procedure for dealing with these applications. To apply for leave
in line for a child the applicant should write a short letter either to the address of the UKBA case
owner who dealt with your own application (the address will be on the letter granting her leave to
remain), or to the UKBA (leave in line), Lunar House, Wellesley Rd, Croydon CR9 2BY, giving the
child’s name, nationality, date of birth, Home Office reference number and provide a photocopy of
her own grant of leave to remain, and an original long birth certificate for the child.)
For those seeking to stay on the grounds of private life alone, the qualifying period for
settlement is 20 years 12 (with some exceptions for those under 18 who have spent at least 7
11 NB at the time of writing, these new rules appear to exclude women who had a spouse visa and then some subsequent
visa before applying under the domestic violence rule. The requirement says ‘applicants whose last visa was a spouse
visa’. However there was no intention to change the rule, and the UKBA have been asked to redraft this para.
12 See Long Residence in part 7 of the Rules, at
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/policyandlaw/immigrationlaw/immigrationrules/part7/
8