Ahmed had built up a shop business over several years here. He and his married sister had been sending money to their parents in Pakistan, in turn, month by month. Over time the parents have become frail and their mother started collapsing frequently under high blood pressure. The family’s other relatives had been lost in the Afghan civil war.
Until July 2012 the parents would have succeeded in a settlement application as Elderly Dependant Relatives; but now they were too late. New Rules came in making it necessary for the parents to have a medical condition for which care was either unavailable or unaffordable. In the first six months of the new regime only one application to enter the UK had succeeded.
The regular sending of money used to be good evidence of dependence on the children working in the UK. Now, it only underlined the fact that local care was affordable. Ahmed and his sister recognised this.
Their case was that local care was unobtainable because the nursing needed for the mother could not be provided at home from any local source. The 24-hour care of a female nurse was not available; and there were insuperable language problems as well.
There was also the difficulty of proving a negative; i.e. that the required care was not available. Fortunately, medical opinion was on hand to support this.
When the case was presented at the stage of review by the Entry Clearance Manager, it was accepted.
