The Home office has told a woman born and brought up in Northern Ireland she needs to provide proof that she is entitled to permanent residency in Belfast after she applied for a residency document for her American husband.
Under the 1998 Good Friday agreement (the “GFA”), all citizens born in Northern Ireland have the unique right within the UK to have Irish or British citizenship or both. Gemma Capparelli, who identifies as Irish as she is entitled to do under the GFA, found herself in Home Office limbo after her husband applied to be in the country as the family member of an European Economic Area national living in the UK.
Ms Capparelli had just returned to Northern Ireland with her Chicago-born husband Dominic and their 10-year-old son, after living abroad for more than a decade. She said she never expected the authorities to question her right to live in her hometown of Belfast just because she married an American.
Her status in the eyes of the Home Office came under the spotlight when her husband applied for residency using the European Economic Area form. It gave him four categories under which to apply but, he says, none reflected the status of those in Northern Ireland who identify as Irish citizens. Ms Capparelli also renounced her British citizenship, at a cost of £400, because she was concerned the Home Office would consider her British and force her husband to go through the more onerous and expensive route for non-EU nationals married to Britons. Under EU law, EU nationals who move to Britain or return to Britain after living in the EU are, by contrast, free to have a non-EU spouse enter the country without going through third country immigration procedures.
The application was refused on the grounds that the “sponsor” did not show any evidence that she had permanent residency, even though she had included her birth certificate showing she was born in the UK. The Home Office told them their right of permanent residence had expired because they had been out of the country for more than two years.
In his covering letter Mr Capparelli explained that he did not think he and his wife fitted any of the categories on the form and explained that Ms Capparelli had renounced her British citizenship so as not to be bound by legal precedent which relates to dual nationals, known as the McCarthy judgment. His lawyer has written to the Home Office asking them to reconsider the application and lodged an appeal against the decision with a tribunal.
Kim Vowden, an immigration lawyer at Kingsley Napley said the issue had arisen because permanent residency is a legal concept for immigration purposes and not a birthright. Those born in Northern Ireland are by birth British and Irish, but permanent residency is a category assigned to migrants, not natives.
It is understood the Home Office is contacting the family to assist them in finding the right route for residency papers. The department denied it was treating Irish citizens in any way differently to British nationals, and said it could only react to application forms presented to case workers.
