'How can godlike power be given to these people where they can devastate people's lives with no questions asked' -- because in international law, entering a country that is not your own is a privilege, not a right; and because the government of the country you tried to enter decided to be strict on who is to enter and who isn't. It's like that in most industrialised countries, it's only rare for people from other industrialised countries to notice it.

They have "god-like" powers, because, in this situation, they are god!

I get that that is the way things are but it doesn’t make it right!

It’s frustrating that I’ve spent my almost 60 years living within the law, always doing the right thing, raised 2 well functioning children, which in itself is very hard, and with a flick of a pen I’m tossed into the same place as those who cheat, steal and lie their whole lives.

I understand your frustration, but you should really find an immigration solicitor.

This site Updates, commentary, training and advice on immigration and asylum law reckons it is a myth: "One of the most common UK immigration myths is that there is a maximum permitted stay of 180 days in a year (or six months in 12 months) for UK visit visa holders. This myth has been propagated not just by migrants but also by advisers and even UK Border Force staff. In reality, there is no such rule." That's not so say, though, that they won't consider you are actually residing in UK.

... although this post does not cite Border Force as saying that, so perhaps it is your own conclusion. It says the reason given was for spending too much time in UK verses your home in California, and for misrepresenting the facts.

Did you ever spend more than 183 days in the UK during a single year? If so, did you file a UK tax return?

Under some administrations you could try writing to an MP (or your UK friends could) and they could ask the Home Office. However under the current Home Office minister (Priti Patel) this is unlikely to get you very far as she consistently behaves like the most hardline or the hardline, so expect little. Home Office employees just follow the insructions from on high and at the moment they're very right wing instructions.

First thank you to all of you. I looked at the site that was posted and it has a lot of good info.

As far as filing a tax return... I saved up for 2 years a more than adequate amount of money to be able to travel for a few years and left my small coffee shop in my daughters hands to run for me so I was still filing my taxes in the US. I am blessed to have some really good friends that live in England that invited me to come stay with them and while I was there we went to a few different countries then came back to England.

I had never traveled before so I was naive to how it all works and that is my stupidity for not knowing all I should have. But I was having the time of my life and thought the only thing that mattered was to not go over six months on any one visit and I never did other than when covid hit and they extended everyone until August 31 2020.

Thank you for the contacting an MP idea. That is something I’ve not thought of.

My guess is it's a thin case. After a Covid extension to stay, you left on 11 Sep 2020 and tried to re-enter on 14 Sep 2020, which would point to not being actually resident in California but in UK. The subsequent visa was refused – presumably to marry the person you had been dating but didn't think relevant to mention at the previous refused entry. Why would they think the application was genuine? Being untruthful includes hiding relevant facts; perhaps there was a reason why you didn't want to mention that person. Their poor response to email wasn't good but not valid grounds lifting a ban.

@Julie regarding the tax issue, it doesnt matter that you lived off savings, you may have obligations to file what is essentially a zero income self assessment anyway - you need to look into that. gov.uk/tax-foreign-income/residence

Ok guys I get how all this might look to you and I respect that but they woke me up in the middle of the night to interview me while I was sleeping on a nasty mattress on the floor and asked me so many irrelevant questions but not once if I was dating or with someone in England and since we had only seen each other 5 times before covid hit and we locked down and didn’t see each other for months. Once I was refused entry & our relationship grew into a serious one. We are almost 60 years old, not young and reckless. And a marriage visit visa is when you aren’t planning on settling in the uk.

So no it didn’t dawn on me to tell them I had been dating someone as it wasn’t serious at that point. And I was traveling to a few different countries throughout my time in Europe leaving the U.K. for a month most times but yes it did end up being more than 6 months per year on average. I feel they could have gave me a warning not to do it again and I would have went and sorted packing my things spent whatever time with my friends and the man I was seeing and then I would have left the U.K. they treated me like a criminal and it was humiliating.

And covid was rampant in California at that time and I was very safe where I was so that’s why I went for the weekend only to renew my visa not knowing I was doing anything wrong.

Applying for a marriage visit visa after practically living in the UK? You gave them yet another reason to think you are abusing Uk immigration rules. The uk.gov page clearly says “You cannot: …live in the UK for long periods of time through frequent or successive visits”

You pretty much turned straight round after being denied entry for effectively making the UK your home, and applied to visit yet again to get married. What did you expect UK immigration authorities would conclude?

You are not "young and reckless", yet only a few weeks after being denied entry, you applied for a marriage visa to someone who was not important enough to mention when interviewed to justify the previous entry. As presented, it doesn't "stack up" as they say. As for appealing to the Home Secretary, there would have to be quite extraordinary circumstances for them to intervene, but with respect to yourself, this is probably little different to 100s of other visa refusals.

So during a pandemic, and we're talking 2020 when flights were limited, before anyone was vaccinated, and most people traveling were doing so for fairly important reasons, you flew 5,000 miles and then turned around and flew another 5,000 miles back to the UK just a couple days later? And this after you already spent a great deal of time in the UK? Can you see how any immigration officer would look at that pattern of behavior and immediately be

more than suspicious that whatever you're doing, it wasn't "visiting" the UK as anyone would normally understand that term?