Can You Be Deported If You Have a Child in the UK?

Can you be deported if you have a child in the UK? And My Child is British Can I Stay in UK? are among the common questions that our UK family and immigration lawyers get asked regularly. Read this article to find out if you can get a parent visa or leave to remain if you’re not a British national, but your child is.

Can You be Deported if You Have a Child in the UK? 

If your child is British, but you are not, there are some reasons that might make you want to acquire citizenship. It could be that you and your British spouse/family member stay in the UK, and you want to live near them. Or perhaps your child wants to study in the country, and you want to work and live near them.

Whatever the reason, it’s important to know if you risk deportation from the UK, or there’s something you can do to be legally allowed to stay in the country if you are a non-British parent to a British child. This article navigates you through all the relevant possibilities. 

How Your Child Can be a UK Citizen?

There are various ways in which your child can become a British citizen. The first one is through birth. However, being born in the UK doesn’t necessarily make the child a British national automatically. Besides being born in the country, one of the parents has to be a British citizen or a permanent resident or have settled status under the EUSS at the time the child is born for the child to be a British citizen and apply for a British passport.

Alternatively, your child can be British through naturalisation. However, they have to meet several conditions for their naturalisation application to be accepted by the Home Office. For instance, they have to be over 18 years old and should have lived in the UK for five years. Besides, the applicant should to have been granted permanent residency or indefinite leave to remain for the previous 12 months before the application is made. 

Unfortunately, the legal steps behind gaining British citizenship are not always easy to understand. If you’re still not sure if your child is a British national or not, it is advisable that you seek legal assistance from experienced UK Immigration solicitors to get your doubts cleared.  

Why Are You Likely to be Deported from the UK? 

Breaking the UK immigration rules is the key ground on which you can be deported from the UK. You can be found guilty of breaking immigration rules if you have:

• Been a foreigner living in the country without leave to remain, permanent residency (indefinite leave to remain) status, valid passport or citizenship. 
• Overstayed
• Broken UK visa rules 
• Entered the country through dishonest ways
• Been found guilty of crimes such as alien smuggling, drug and substance abuse, domestic violence, firearms trafficking, money laundering, fraud, espionage and terrorism. 
   

In case the Home Office finds you guilty of any of the aforementioned offences, it will start the arrangements to get you deported. However, you can appeal the decision by providing reasonable evidence showing that you meet certain legal requirements that allow you to stay in the country. A hostile/dangerous home country and having close family members in the UK are among key grounds that you can appeal the decision.

When it comes to close family members, you can cite your child who is legally allowed to stay/live in the UK. 

Appealing a Home Office decision is normally a complex process, but top-notch legal advice from experienced UK immigration solicitors can go a long way to making the appeal successful. At Gulbenkian Andonian, we’ve helped lots of people who were, at some point, on the verge of being deported from the UK, using compelling pieces of evidence. 

My Child is British Can I Stay in UK?

Now, if your child is British (by birth, naturalisation or any other Home Office-approved way) and you’re not, can you stay in the UK? Can you be deported for being an illegal immigrant if you’re living with the child in the country? 

Perhaps you’ve considered getting a UK family visa, British citizenship or leave to remain through the citizenship of your child to avoid deportation. If you approach a UK Immigration lawyer with the suggestion, among the first questions they’ll ask you is whether you have a spouse or partner who’s a UK resident or citizen. If your response is affirmative, the legal advisor will be more inclined to use your relationship with the spouse in the application than your relationship with your British child. 

Otherwise, your relationship with your British child can be of great help in your application for permission to stay in the country. The Home Office can also consider the parent-child relationship in your application if the child has obtained Settled Status or Indefinite Leave to Remain status. 

You can apply for a Parent of a British Child Visa UK for the Home Office to allow you to live with the child in the UK. Besides being a citizen or having an Indefinite Leave to Remain status, the child should be below 18 years old and should be living in the country on the date of the application for your request to be successful. 

Besides, you have to prove that:

• You bear the child’s parental responsibilities alone 
• The child is not your partner 
• You are not qualified to apply for a UK Partner Visa 
• You have the right to access the child 
• You’ve been actively involved in the upbringing of the child
• You are 18 or above
• You can sustain yourself and the child in the UK without relying on public funds 
• You are a citizen of a country whose majority of its population are English speakers

Those are just some of the key requirements that you have to fulfil to increase the chances of the approval of your Parent Visa UK. There are additional requirements to ensure that you are suitable to live with your child and some exemptions for particular scenarios. 

You can learn more about being a parent of a British child or child with ILR (indefinite leave to remain) here. 

So, you can stay in the UK if your child is British through a Parent of a British Child Visa UK. However, even with the Visa, you need to be careful not to break Visa rules or involve yourself in criminal activities like smuggling, drug and substance abuse, and firearms trafficking to avoid deportation. 

Having issues with your UK Parent Visa application? Or are you worried that you might be deported and leave your beloved child in the UK against your wish? Get in touch with super-friendly and highly experienced Gulbenkian Andonian’s UK Immigration solicitors now for effective and easy-to-understand legal advice.