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Family Immigration AllianceWritten Submission (2013)

Family Migration InquiryAPPG on Migration

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After the rules were announced, it became quite clear that sponsors who were mothers of youngchildren were affected most seriously. With full time childcare commitments, it has sometimes notbeen possible for these sponsors to get employment and therefore have not been able to meet theincome requirement. Lucy said:My partner will not be able to join me until I am earning 18,600, which couldbe up two years awayfor me. He will not be able to support me and be there for our child as I qualify [to be a teacher]. Ascary prospect for me and a sad one when I think of how his and our babys relationship will beaffected. We talked about extending the length of time that we spend visiting each other; 6 months

here and 6 months there for the next 2 years but of course that will cost money and as a singleparent and a student I dont know how Im going to be able to earn the sort of money that we willneedand I wont be able to spend long periods outside of the country whilst training to become ateacher.Compounding this problem is the Immigration Rules refusal to acknowledge the assets, savings orpresent earnings (or job offers in the UK) of the spouse. With 13 of the stories concerning childcare,it has exposed this quite large proportion of contributors to unnecessary hardship; in some casesforcing them to claim welfare benefits themselves. Emma, who has been married to her Indonesianhusband since 2002 and with whom she has two children said:I have been on Income Support, and now going onto Job Seekers Allowance in October, stillsearching for work, and even set myself up to freelance as a designer from home to create anincome. I wrote to my local MP explaining the situation and that it was so ironic, because if my

husband was allowed to be in this country, our child care problems would cease to exist, and wecould both have the shared time to work and care for our family without having to claim any benefitfrom the state.5The emphasis on uni-directional support from the sponsor to the spouse fails to adequately accountfor earning potential as a family; depriving sponsors of much needed, and otherwise available,spousal support. But even where sponsors do manage to satisfy the requirement, an inordinatesacrifice in the relationship can still result.In Sophies case she had to resign from her much loved job as a Learning Support Assistant inorder to take up a job earning enough to satisfy the income requirement:After one month of searching, I was finally offered a job. Handing in my notice at my school andexplaining why was embarrassing and upsetting... Now, we must wait 6 months before we can applyfor the Settlement Visa. In an attempt to find a way to be together in the meantime, my husband

applied for a Family Visit Visa which was refused on the grounds that he was not a Genuine visitorand was at risk of overstaying... What I cannot understand is why on Earth would we break the law,knowing the consequences, when we are a young couple starting out our life together? And why it isnot genuine that a married couple might want to spend some time together! 6Before 9th July 2012, Non EEA spouses did not have recourse to public funds; as they continue notto. While this did not necessarily prevent abuse of the benefits system where the spouse or eventhe sponsor is not eligible for them, the income threshold by virtue of the existing arrangement, doesnot directly tackle welfare system abuse. Rather, it presents an unhelpful obstacle to entryaltogether. Another frustrating point for many sponsors has been precisely that the income thresholdis overkill, where no recourse to public funds prevents legal entitlement to welfare benefits already.If [a] married couple decide that they can live off of the income that one partner makes that shouldbe their decision, not the governments. And if a person in the UK on a visa with no recourse topublic funds stamped across their passport/visa cannot access public funding how does that makea difference to the government?7The burden or risk to the tax payer has not changed by introducing the income requirement, andthis is a point that after repeated enquiries, the FIA and other campaigners have still not received asatisfactory justification for introducing.Emotional impactNearly all contributors refer to the upset and outright depression they are suffering as a result of theseparation they face from their spouses. To those that feel they have abundant means betweenthem for support, but fall outside of the rules, the situation they face seems not only unfair butunnecessary. Another anonymous contributor wrote:My income at the time was 18,000 a year gross, so effectively I was 50 a month short on

meeting their threshold. We were told to try and apply anyway, as we would be among the first5http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/emmas-story/

6http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/sophies-story/

7http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/tonis-story/

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people trying to get in under the new regulations and there maybe some flexibility, especially in acase where it is so obvious that once she returns my wife would be more than able to supportherself (on top of having a degree in Design Engineering, she has access to more than enoughfunds to meet the savings threshold of 16k+, but as these are her assets and not mine they couldnot be included in the official visa application) On 15th October (a day I will never forget) we gotthe awful news we had been dreading, the visa was rejected on financial grounds. Personally I havenever felt so emasculated in all my life.8A number of contributors even refer to feeling like criminals orprisoners in their own country. They

are unable to leave the UK sometimes for fear of poverty, danger, inadequate healthcare or socialostracism in their spouses country, or often simply in the interests of bringing up their children in asafe and prosperous society where they are established in schools, and where they are frequentlyalready citizens. For many sponsors Britain is home. The prospect of not being able to make a family life here is deeply upsetting. Sponsors frequently report crying with their loved ones over thephone/Skype or even just at the discovery of the rules they are required to meet in order to remaintogether.9,10,11,12,13What upsets many sponsors is the requirement to demonstrate the income threshold for 6 months,which seems to force well established married couples to have to spend substantial amounts of timeapart. Michael reported:I have a full-time permanent job with a salary well in excess of the financial requirement, plussterling in bank accounts here and even more to be transferred from the sale of our house and

cashing-in superannuation in Australia hundreds of thousands of pounds, all up. But my wife wastold that she could not apply to enter the UK, except as a temporary visitor, until I had been inemployment for six months. The situation is, frankly, bonkers. We have been married for nearly 40years. My partner lived and worked in the UK between 1973 and 2002. I lived here from birth to2002 (I am 64) and worked from 1965 to 2002. We both graduated from English universities. Wepaid tax, have National Insurance numbers and neither of us has any history of claiming benefits14ConclusionThe Home Secretary in the 2011 consultation on family immigration stated that the key themes toour approach are stopping abuse, promoting integration and reducing the burden on thetaxpayer15. From the testimonies contributed, neither the Family Immigration Alliance nor any ofthe sponsors involved are convinced about the integrity or effectiveness of these aims. The incomethreshold, as described in the experiences above, appears to have no tangible impact on abuse

where no recourse to public funds is the pre-existing standard. In certain instances the requirementhas even added financial burdens to the tax payer by limiting sponsors options for support. Withregards to integration, we find it unsatisfactory to argue that by preventing the entry or residence ofa spouse it in some way promotes their integration. By curtailing the opportunity for spouses to bewith their UK sponsor, the likelihood of successful integration is slimmer by nature of the restriction.But further to this it begs the question of what the spouse is integrating into; where family life is atechnical, bureaucratic privilege, rather than a consistently enjoyed human right.

8http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/a-sponsors-story-2/

9http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/alis-story/

10http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/johns-story/

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http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/stevens-story/12http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/09/01/kevins-story/

13http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/lionels-story/

14http://familyimmigrationalliance.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/michaels-story/

15Home Office, 2011. Family Migration: A Consultation. Home Office, London. July 2011.

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