Despite the formalisation and introduction of the 7year provisions into the Immigration Rules, in practice the Home Office seem to abhor the very Rule that Government has entrenched into the legal framework. Where applications placing reliance upon the 7year Rule are refused, at appeal, Home Office Presenting Officers rarely take issue with establishment of fact of the child’s UK residence itself but fervently seek to sustain an attack focused upon the parent’s past conduct and behaviour, with the intended result that the public interest in removal becomes stronger.
The ancestry of Paragraph 276 ADE (1)(iv) is well set out between paragraphs 8 to 17 of PD and others v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2016] UKUT 108 (IAC). In PD, the Upper Tribunal clarified at Para 12 of their judgement “…….in applications for leave to remain based on Article 8 private life, it has not been sufficient for a child applicant to have accumulated seven years continuous residence in the United Kingdom. Rather, the applicant has also had to demonstrate that he or she could not reasonably be expected to leave the United Kingdom”.