The financially dependent Somalian mother of a British citizen does not have an Art 8 right to join her daughter in the UK, the Court of Appeal has held
In AAO v Entry Clearance Office [2011] EWCA Civ 840, the entry clearance officer had refused the mother’s application for indefinite leave to remain on the grounds she failed to satisfy the requirement of maintenance free of recourse to public funds. The mother, who is in poor health and regularly receives money from her daughter, appealed. The court heard there was little contact between mother and daughter, other than monthly telephone calls.
Dismissing the appeal, the court held that the financial payments were not enough to satisfy the Art 8 definition of family life.
Lord Justice Rix said, in his judgment, that “the provision of such money can be as much an insulation against family life as evidence of it”.
If there had been a breach of Art 8, he said, then it “would be justified by the principles of immigration control and by what would otherwise amount to the imposition on the admitting state of the use of public resources to maintain the immigrant”.
