4 ms·

First, the author is actually wrong. The date is not 5 years before you submit, but is 5 years before the form is received by the home office! So there are a fe

by 317070 11mo ago

First, the author is actually wrong. The date is not 5 years before you submit, but is 5 years before the form is received by the home office! So there are a few days of uncertainty, depending on how fast Royal Mail was with the physical documents. Additionally, I did a request for my information from the home office prior to filling in my form. After all, you have the right to request the information they have on you that will be used to verify your form. Kafka would be proud. Let me tell you, Home Office doesn't have a clue where you were 5 years ago. It had approximately 50% of my trips, and frequently only had only one leg of the journey. Plane, ferry, train, sailboat, ... it didn't matter. It seems like they have not been keeping the information very well.

jakub_g 11mo ago
> It had approximately 50% of my trips, and frequently only had only one leg of the journey Relevant current news: Home Office denying child benefits to 1000s of people because they had incomplete data of people vacation trips, so people were thought to have emigrated and never returned [0]. Some people who never even left (due to cancelled flights, denied boardings etc.) were also affected. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/01/hmrc-likely-to-have-breached-privacy-laws-in-stopping-child-benefit-experts https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/01/hmrc-likely...
- zarzavat 11mo ago
  This is because the UK doesn't have exit checks. They rely on airlines to submit the information to them. I guess this makes sense when you consider that there's an open border with Ireland. Though you'd think that the UK and Ireland could get together to track exits...
  - jen729w 11mo ago
    The UK's borders used to be hilariously lax. In 2000 I travelled a lot. To leave, as you note, you just left. To return, you'd walk past a man at Heathrow who was invariably reading the paper. He had his feet up on the desk. You were walking at a clip, passport held aloft, photo page ostensibly open towards him. That was it. Immigrated.
    - aprdm 11mo ago
      In 2014 I landed on either Heathrow or another London airport I don’t remember coming from Spain after a vacation I read on a sign “travellers from Europe this way” and I thought ok my flight came from Spain I’m going that way … when I saw I was out of the airport with no immigration whatsoever In hindsight it obviously meant if you’re European (which I’m not), I was in shock how easy someone could get in the UK !
      - bluGill 11mo ago
        I don't know about UK, but my experience is the signs for EU and non-EU point different directions, but either way you just go through a door that leads to the exact same place. I've been told that when they are looking for "something" they will put extra checks at the non-EU door, but if you have a US passport (I presume other countries like Canada) in hand they will send you through the EU door.
      - sksksk 11mo ago
        Are you sure your passport wasn’t checked? What you’re describing sounds like it was the customs check. Pre-brexit, if you were arriving from the EU, then there was no customs check since we were all part of the same customs union. The usual flow is immigration check -> baggage collection -> customs check
        aprdm 11mo ago
        Yeah wasn’t checked. I’m pretty sure it was a smaller airport than Heathrow. I definitely went through the wrong path out
        ssdspoimdsjvv 11mo ago
        Perhaps your passport was checked on departure instead of on arrival? At least that's how it worked when taking the Eurostar train.
        strbean 11mo ago
  - immibis 11mo ago
    * * *
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - donohoe 11mo ago
      Speak for yourself, not the Irish.
    - argsnd 11mo ago
      this is a genuinely awful description of Irish history
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    - logifail 11mo ago
      > The open border treaty was put in place because the alternative was either giving the territory back, or nonstop terrorism (look up the Irish Republican Army) until they gave the territory back. The Common Travel Area's origins are in the the period 1923-1925[0], although it wasn't called that back then... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area
    - bmn__ 11mo ago
      > Ireland dislikes the UK since the UK invaded it This was centuries before the UK. The Normans came to Ireland by invitation of Macmurphy, King of Leinster, to help him restore his power, in exchange for promises of territory. This barely counts as a conquest CB, but with certainty not as an invasion.
      - steve_adams_86 11mo ago
        The Tudor conquest of Ireland involved the English and Scottish. It was before the UK existed, but was perpetrated by the constituents of the UK. At least, the ancestors of the contemporary constituents. Maybe not of Wales though, I don't know.
  - walthamstow 11mo ago
    20+ years of lighting our hair on fire over immigration and we still have no idea who is in the country.
    - Telemakhos 11mo ago
      Starmer addressed this a while back, accusing the Tories of campaigning on reducing immigration while actually running an experiment in open borders. Having made this statement, he then proceeded to do nothing about immigration himself. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2024/nov/28/keir-starmer-on-migration-tories-ran-open-borders-experiment-video https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2024/nov/28/keir-... It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration, and then not to fulfill the will of the electorate. Instead, the politicians use that will to accomplish unrelated goals like imposing a national digital ID.
      - bluGill 11mo ago
        > the electorate really doesn’t want immigration Is that the case or is there just a significant minority that cares and the rest are happy enough as things are and would get mad if there was change - thus making their approach rational: get the votes of those who care but don't do anything because then you will be voted out next term. I don't know myself, but this is something that I've wondered about a lot of issues that I care about where nothing happens. (I've long been on the side of more immigration)
      - roelschroeven 11mo ago
        Politicians like campaign on reducing immigration because it's an easy thing to campaign on. They don't like to actually do anything about it because (1) it's hard, especially when you want to comply with laws and treaties and (2) effectively reducing immigration could hamper the ability to campaign on reducing immigration.
      - mschuster91 11mo ago
        > It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration Usually, it's not an "inner wish" of the electorate, but the electorate gets manipulated to feel that way by mass media, especially tabloids. Outrage sells, after all, especially when it can be laced to make it more effective. The problem at the core is that immigration is vital for societies, especially the low-pay-hard-labor segment. Has the UK found a replacement for Ukrainian and Polish farm workers yet [1]? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/15/pounds-60m-in-uk-crops-left-to-rot-lack-of-workers-nfu-farming https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/15/pounds-6...
  - anon98356 11mo ago
    In the context of the issue that doesn't really make sense. The issue is that the home office think you left and didn't come back. How would an exit check tell the home office you have come back into the country?
    - zarzavat 11mo ago
      In a country that has exit checks, in order to go airside, a border agent will stamp you out and record your exit. If you were to get stamped out and then decide that you don't want to catch your flight after all, you'd have to get stamped back in again (often not a real stamp these days). In the UK there's no exit checks. The only information they have is that you booked a flight. This is "Advance Passenger Information" which all airlines are legally required to submit. They don't know if you've actually boarded the flight, they just assume that if you booked a flight that it means you left the country. The exit check doesn't tell them that you've come back, they know that already unless you cross the land border. But it does tell them that you truly left and stop the guesswork.
  - eru 11mo ago
    > I guess this makes sense when you consider that there's an open border with Ireland. Weren't the other borders with the Schengen area open, too? Eg if you take a small boat from England to Denmark, no one needed to check anything.
shrikant 11mo ago
As someone who's been through that dance twice, it's 5 years from the time (well, day) you press "Submit" if you're applying online, or $RANDOM days of Royal Mail nonsense if you choose to apply by post. I agree though, the Home Office doesn't have a way of knowing where you were fore sure 5 years ago unless they got someone to go through your "days in and out of the UK" list and vetted/cross-referenced it. And even then it'd likely be incomplete and they'd have to guess. My surmise is that they look at the level of effort you've put in to filling out that detail, and if the total days in/out isn't particularly a borderline case, then they just wave that bit through.
throawayonthe 11mo ago
i think they meant online, which could be different?
zahlman 11mo ago
I would have thought that the point is that you're supposed to be there continuously for some considerable duration (and having worked through other processes of legal immigration) before applying for citizenship. So the idea of trying to figure out exactly which day five years in the past you have to mention seems odd to me. If there's really no care being paid to the intervening time... well if you're trying to exploit a loophole like that I think I'd prefer that it's difficult... ?

by 317070 11mo ago

jakub_g 11mo ago

> It had approximately 50% of my trips, and frequently only had only one leg of the journey Relevant current news: Home Office denying child benefits to 1000s of people because they had incomplete data of people vacation trips, so people were thought to have emigrated and never returned [0]. Some people who never even left (due to cancelled flights, denied boardings etc.) were also affected. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/01/hmrc-likely-to-have-breached-privacy-laws-in-stopping-child-benefit-experts https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/nov/01/hmrc-likely...

zarzavat 11mo ago
This is because the UK doesn't have exit checks. They rely on airlines to submit the information to them. I guess this makes sense when you consider that there's an open border with Ireland. Though you'd think that the UK and Ireland could get together to track exits...
- jen729w 11mo ago
  The UK's borders used to be hilariously lax. In 2000 I travelled a lot. To leave, as you note, you just left. To return, you'd walk past a man at Heathrow who was invariably reading the paper. He had his feet up on the desk. You were walking at a clip, passport held aloft, photo page ostensibly open towards him. That was it. Immigrated.
  - aprdm 11mo ago
    In 2014 I landed on either Heathrow or another London airport I don’t remember coming from Spain after a vacation I read on a sign “travellers from Europe this way” and I thought ok my flight came from Spain I’m going that way … when I saw I was out of the airport with no immigration whatsoever In hindsight it obviously meant if you’re European (which I’m not), I was in shock how easy someone could get in the UK !
    - bluGill 11mo ago
      I don't know about UK, but my experience is the signs for EU and non-EU point different directions, but either way you just go through a door that leads to the exact same place. I've been told that when they are looking for "something" they will put extra checks at the non-EU door, but if you have a US passport (I presume other countries like Canada) in hand they will send you through the EU door.
    - sksksk 11mo ago
      Are you sure your passport wasn’t checked? What you’re describing sounds like it was the customs check. Pre-brexit, if you were arriving from the EU, then there was no customs check since we were all part of the same customs union. The usual flow is immigration check -> baggage collection -> customs check
      - aprdm 11mo ago
        Yeah wasn’t checked. I’m pretty sure it was a smaller airport than Heathrow. I definitely went through the wrong path out
        ssdspoimdsjvv 11mo ago
        Perhaps your passport was checked on departure instead of on arrival? At least that's how it worked when taking the Eurostar train.
      - strbean 11mo ago
- immibis 11mo ago
  * * *
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - donohoe 11mo ago
    Speak for yourself, not the Irish.
  - argsnd 11mo ago
    this is a genuinely awful description of Irish history
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - logifail 11mo ago
    > The open border treaty was put in place because the alternative was either giving the territory back, or nonstop terrorism (look up the Irish Republican Army) until they gave the territory back. The Common Travel Area's origins are in the the period 1923-1925[0], although it wasn't called that back then... [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Travel_Area
  - bmn__ 11mo ago
    > Ireland dislikes the UK since the UK invaded it This was centuries before the UK. The Normans came to Ireland by invitation of Macmurphy, King of Leinster, to help him restore his power, in exchange for promises of territory. This barely counts as a conquest CB, but with certainty not as an invasion.
    - steve_adams_86 11mo ago
      The Tudor conquest of Ireland involved the English and Scottish. It was before the UK existed, but was perpetrated by the constituents of the UK. At least, the ancestors of the contemporary constituents. Maybe not of Wales though, I don't know.
- walthamstow 11mo ago
  20+ years of lighting our hair on fire over immigration and we still have no idea who is in the country.
  - Telemakhos 11mo ago
    Starmer addressed this a while back, accusing the Tories of campaigning on reducing immigration while actually running an experiment in open borders. Having made this statement, he then proceeded to do nothing about immigration himself. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2024/nov/28/keir-starmer-on-migration-tories-ran-open-borders-experiment-video https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2024/nov/28/keir-... It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration, and then not to fulfill the will of the electorate. Instead, the politicians use that will to accomplish unrelated goals like imposing a national digital ID.
    - bluGill 11mo ago
      > the electorate really doesn’t want immigration Is that the case or is there just a significant minority that cares and the rest are happy enough as things are and would get mad if there was change - thus making their approach rational: get the votes of those who care but don't do anything because then you will be voted out next term. I don't know myself, but this is something that I've wondered about a lot of issues that I care about where nothing happens. (I've long been on the side of more immigration)
    - roelschroeven 11mo ago
      Politicians like campaign on reducing immigration because it's an easy thing to campaign on. They don't like to actually do anything about it because (1) it's hard, especially when you want to comply with laws and treaties and (2) effectively reducing immigration could hamper the ability to campaign on reducing immigration.
    - mschuster91 11mo ago
      > It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration Usually, it's not an "inner wish" of the electorate, but the electorate gets manipulated to feel that way by mass media, especially tabloids. Outrage sells, after all, especially when it can be laced to make it more effective. The problem at the core is that immigration is vital for societies, especially the low-pay-hard-labor segment. Has the UK found a replacement for Ukrainian and Polish farm workers yet [1]? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/15/pounds-60m-in-uk-crops-left-to-rot-lack-of-workers-nfu-farming https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/15/pounds-6...
- anon98356 11mo ago
  In the context of the issue that doesn't really make sense. The issue is that the home office think you left and didn't come back. How would an exit check tell the home office you have come back into the country?
  - zarzavat 11mo ago
    In a country that has exit checks, in order to go airside, a border agent will stamp you out and record your exit. If you were to get stamped out and then decide that you don't want to catch your flight after all, you'd have to get stamped back in again (often not a real stamp these days). In the UK there's no exit checks. The only information they have is that you booked a flight. This is "Advance Passenger Information" which all airlines are legally required to submit. They don't know if you've actually boarded the flight, they just assume that if you booked a flight that it means you left the country. The exit check doesn't tell them that you've come back, they know that already unless you cross the land border. But it does tell them that you truly left and stop the guesswork.
- eru 11mo ago
  > I guess this makes sense when you consider that there's an open border with Ireland. Weren't the other borders with the Schengen area open, too? Eg if you take a small boat from England to Denmark, no one needed to check anything.

shrikant 11mo ago

As someone who's been through that dance twice, it's 5 years from the time (well, day) you press "Submit" if you're applying online, or $RANDOM days of Royal Mail nonsense if you choose to apply by post. I agree though, the Home Office doesn't have a way of knowing where you were fore sure 5 years ago unless they got someone to go through your "days in and out of the UK" list and vetted/cross-referenced it. And even then it'd likely be incomplete and they'd have to guess. My surmise is that they look at the level of effort you've put in to filling out that detail, and if the total days in/out isn't particularly a borderline case, then they just wave that bit through.

throawayonthe 11mo ago

i think they meant online, which could be different?

zahlman 11mo ago

I would have thought that the point is that you're supposed to be there continuously for some considerable duration (and having worked through other processes of legal immigration) before applying for citizenship. So the idea of trying to figure out exactly which day five years in the past you have to mention seems odd to me. If there's really no care being paid to the intervening time... well if you're trying to exploit a loophole like that I think I'd prefer that it's difficult... ?