Visa - Can somebody help?

What do I do

My girlfriend is from Argentina. She came here to learn English and we met and fell in love. Just before her visa expired, we applied for a defacto relationship visa even though we didn’t have 2 years of living together. She moved into my family home a few months ago while we waited to hear back from her application. Well she got a letter today saying she doesn’t meet the criteria for the defacto and to respond within 15 days with a threat of being deported. What do we do? We want to stay together. If we got married, would she get a visa instantly? Please somebody help us as we just want to live a normal life. If she returns home, could she come back here? Could we live in Northern Ireland together? What are our options? Thanks

Atlantic Dawn

Easiest way would be to marry her.

What do I do

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Easiest way would be to marry her.

But we need to give 3 months notice to marry and what if she’s deported in the meantime. What is the right way for us to get married? Should she go home and come back for the wedding? What visa would she need then? Or should she stay here until we marry?

gozunda

Go to Argentina?

biko

She will probably have to go back home for some time and apply from there for another visa.

bobbyy gee

No defacto visas
http://www.inis.gov.ie/en/INIS/Pages/De+Facto+Relationships

TP_CM

There are 2 las vegas-esque destinations here in Europe where you don't require a certificate of freedom to marry which normally takes 2 or 3 months to get.

One is Copanhagan and the other is Gibraltar. I'm not sure what the situation is with Covid but you could get married within the month.

Once married, you will need to apply for her stamp 4 visa based on her marriage to an Irish citizen. This can take up to a year to process, however, if you are good at documentation, ensure you have all in order and nicely laid out in a folder for the government to review, this might only take weeks if you're lucky (for us it was 2 weeks or maybe 3 I can't remember). Part of that application, since you haven't been living together, will require you to detail your entire history including photos, tickets, trips abroad. Ours was 30 pages long full of flight details and photos we had taken during our time together. To prove the relationship is legitimate.

I see a visa is not required for Argentinian people for the UK and they can stay there for up to 6 months. Do you work remotely these days? Why not go up North?

Finally, just to be doubly sure, you might want to check with her if she has any italian relatives - a seemingly large number of argentines have grandmothers and grandfathers who were Italian. The italians hand out citizenship quite easily and then she'd have her Italian passport. Long shot but worth checking if she has anyone family from Italy, Spain or Portugal.

Caranica

Marriage will not automatically grant her the right to live in this country, and having an application for a visa processing does not entitle her to stay in the country either. Now that she's been ordered to contact INIS, they'll be watching her closely.

Definitely check the Italy thing, that would be the easiest by far.