Two years and three months of waiting and receiving four refusal letters (it took about two to
three months waiting for Home Office to reply each time) from the Home Office about my ILR (Indefinite leave to
remain in the UK) application for 10 years lawful long residence have taken their toll.

This situation has made me and my family very depressed, upset and frustrated for a very long time. I have been shouting at my family without being aware of it and made my mother tearful a few times. Now, even worse is that I am classed as an illegal immigrant and also informed that I am not allowed to work since 18th of March. They could send me back to Taiwan if I did paid work. Therefore, I do voluntary work for the workshops I have arranged because I do not want the kids to be disappointed. I have a four and half months old son and wife to look after and I have to suffer the consequence of actions, which I have not caused.

I applied to the Home Office in December 2006 for ILR for long residence. The Home Office refused as they believed that I had been absent from the UK for 18 months in total in the periods between 24/09/2003 and 22/07/2005. This is not correct.

The Home Office has claimed that I left the UK and returned to the UK on dates, which are correct, but they have omitted earlier dates when I returned.
They say that I have no evidence of my entry into the UK on those earlier occasions, so I have entered the UK illegally. However, they asked me to provide evidence of my residence during that period of time, which I did. I have given them my bank statements, and even marked out when and where I shopped in the UK during that period. My tutor (University of Newcastle) and employer's letters (University of Sunderland and Forge education), payments and documents from Human Resources at the University of Sunderland, the travel agent's reference for my flight tickets, have been provided, but they state these are not official documents and therefore are not sufficient evidence.

I am not a UK or EU citizen. Each time I enter a UK airport I need to get my passport stamped and hand in a landing card at Immigration control. Without doing this, I will not be allowed into the UK. The Home Office has told me that they do not have a record of my entry into the UK and there is no landing card for either of the two disputed occasions (13, Oct, 2003 and 24, May, 2004). Therefore, the Immigration Officer at Newcastle Airport has neglected to stamp my passport on 2 occasions and this has prejudiced my ILR application for long residence. I have evidence that I was in the UK at the time but cannot provide what the Home Office states is official evidence that I lawfully entered the UK as the IO did not stamp my passport on these 2 occasions.

This is what the Home Office has stated in the refusal letter.

"The Immigration Rules clearly state that indefinite leave to remain on the grounds of long residence in the United Kingdom is to be refused if the Secretary of State is not satisfied that each of the requirements of Paragraph 276B is met. In your client's case he was granted leave to remain as a student valid until 30 April
2004 but his passport shows he embarked and returned to Taiwan on 24 September 2003, not returning to the United Kingdom until 7 March 2004, an absence of 5 months. Your client again embarked from the United Kingdom, arriving in Taiwan on 27 April 2004 and did not return to the United Kingdom until 18 April 2005, an absence of 12 months. On 22 January 2005 your client returned to Taiwan and did not re-enter the United Kingdom until 22 July 2005, a gap of 6 months, therefore your client's continuity of residence is considered to have been broken a he has spent a total of more than 18 months absent from the United Kingdom.

The secretary of State is aware of your submissions regarding your client's continuous residence, however it is noted that your client has no evidence to demonstrate that he lawfully entered the United Kingdom on 24 May 2004, therefore it is considered that your client has not had at least 10 years continuous lawful residence in the United Kingdom and does not meet the requirements for in definite leave to remain under the published Immigration Rules paragraph 276D with reference to 276B (i) (a) of HC395 (as amended).."

I have received interviews from three different presses recently. My story was on the regional news (Tyne Tee Television) on 6 April 2009, Sunderland Echo 8 April 2009, and Evening Chronicle 9 April, 2009:

I hope these reports might help with my case. My solicitor has sent a fresh application based on the human right issues, and therefore the Home Office is looking
at my case again regarding to my human right to stay in the UK. (but not on the basis of the evidence I have submitted for the disputed periods, which they
have decided not to do any review) However, before the HO make any further decision ( it might take up to six months), I remain being classed as an illegal
immigrant and not allowed to do any paid work. I still need to report to the Border agency in North Shield every Wednesday. My lawyer once said "Basically,
what Home Office try to do is make you suffer and make your life harder and harder until you would finally give it up and disappear from here." I think for the Home Office, I am just a number, not a person.

Dr. Chun-Chao Chiu
Lecturer in Chinese Painting
Centre for Lifelong Learning
University of Sunderland

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