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Thomas
Thomas, Lawyer
Category: Immigration Law
Satisfied Customers: 7677
Experience:  UK Lawyer holding practising certficate for England & Wales.
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Hello, I have a real drama when it comes to my situation. I

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Hello, I have a real drama when it comes to my situation. I am an international student been in the UK for two years now. I am trying to get advice on what can I do to get the ILR then the citizenship and wether buying a property with my name will help speed up the process as I am aware of the "10 yrs student ILR" situation but I am desperate to have the citizenship so I can be freed a little from my parents and native country. The dramatic story begins with me turning atheist and adapting to Western world that might actually cause my parents to take away my choices send me back to my native country and get sentenced to death. I want to gain citizenship as it is easier than asylum and another reason is that I do not want my parents to know about it so they won't cut any fundings (at least until I finish my studies and start working for myself). All I am looking for is advice and suggestions on how to better my situation and solve my problems.
Hi,

Thanks for your question. I'm Tom and I'll try to help.

If you have a student visa then, as you have correctly identified, the only way that you would be able to get ILR in the current circumstance would be to remain her until you qualify under the long residence rules.

Buying a property here does not give you any additional rights in terms of being eligible to apply for ILR any earlier. If you have a student visa only then it's also unlikely that a high street lender would give you a mortgage offer because they generally require that foreign nationals have ILR to get a mortgage offer.

If you have a well founded-fear that you would be persecuted if you were returned to your home country then an application for asylum might be an option.

The governement's webpage on asylum is here:-
https://www.gov.uk/claim-asylum

The eligiblity criteria on asylum applications is here:-https://www.gov.uk/claim-asylum/eligibility

It is very difficult to get asylum and in practice only 19 out of every 100 applications is successful, so you should really consider it an application of last resort if you are not able to reach the long residence time requirements.

So, I would remain in the UK on your student visa and arrange to switch to another form of visa if you plan to stop studying. Most persons attempt to switch to Tier 2 general in these circumstance when they are approaching the end of their studies:-
https://www.gov.uk/tier-2-general/overview

If it appears that you are not able to do this, then you might consider an asylum application if you consider that you are eligibl, which will eventually lead to ILR.

Kind regards,

Tom

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