How to return to the UK as a non-visa national after previously experiencing problems at the border?

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An answer to this question has been posted by Gayot Fow, a former immigration lawyer, on his blog:

Essentially the OP was a student who (apparently) dropped out and got a curtailment. They went home to appeal and returned to the UK again to collect their belongings. They were detained at port and given a 14 day temporary admission.

The OP is a non-visa national so can arrive in the UK without a visa, but worries about the possibility of being detained again and possibly removed. The final sentence of the post is a question: “But would the risk of being refused entry again be too high?”

There’s too many unexplained pieces in the narrative to make an educated guess, and the question is framed as an opinion poll in the first instance. If 10 random people say the risk is too high and 5 random people say the risk is not too high, what does it mean? Nada.

So why waste time on this question at all? Because there’s a fixed, immutable piece of standard advice for anyone who has been detained or given a temporary admission. And that piece of advice is: “get an entry clearance“. You can never be wrong on that aspect of the UK Border Force. Even if the person shows up without an entry clearance and manages to get in, they are still better off having obtained a visa beforehand.

The other advantage to having an entry clearance is in future landing interviews. Immigration Officers will always dwell on a temporary admission when they see it. It means things will always be awkward, even after a few years. But what the person can say is “Yes, that event happened, and so I went home and successfully applied for an entry clearance thus demonstrating a viable change in circumstances” (or words to that effect). Off the hook. Enjoy your visit. Done and dusted.

So the question is not really an opinion poll at all. It’s deterministic with a single answer: “Pay the £89 and get an entry clearance before chancing wasted airfares and the distress of removal from port“.

CC BY-SA 3.0. Unchanged.

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