“You made our lives full of happiness”

In November 2020 we submitted an application for a Libyan family who asked the Home Office to grant them leave to remain on the basis of their private and family life.  The interesting part of this case is that the family did not wish to claim asylum, nor did they wish to rely on humanitarian protection as Libyan nationals, they only wanted to remain on the basis of their private life.  We argued under Immigration Rules 276ADE that there are insurmountable obstacles to the family’s integration back to Libya.  

The reasons were that the family had two children.  One who was under 18 and has lived in the UK continuously for seven years, and therefore we argued that it would be unreasonable to expect him to leave the UK given his connections to the UK and medical conditions.  His physical and mental health challenges made it unreasonable for him to integrate readily into life in another country, to which he did not have cultural, social or linguistic ties.  The other child of the family was also facing medical challenges and although now in recovery, we argued that he needs to be seen yearly by consultants. 

We demonstrated that the specialist care and treatment for the two children could not be provided in Libya, and we elaborated on the climate of unrest because of the country’s insecure security situation.  The inability for citizens to be able to fly regularly to the United Kingdom or to withdraw their own money out of their Bank accounts and the reduction in medical facilities led to the conclusion of the country expert that there has been a deterioration of the medical facilities in Libya and that the children would not be able to come readily to have treatment in the United Kingdom. 

The expert also confirmed that stigma is prevalent in a country such as Libya and people with disabilities are subject to negative stereotyping. The combination of significant obstacles to the family’s integration in Libya supported by a country expert report and medical evidence resulted in a successful outcome and the family was granted leave to remain under the Immigration Rules.  

The family was informed of the good news and they were delighted and generously accredited the success to our hard work throughout the process. 

They said “You made our lives full of happiness”.