Home Office Wins Appeal On Spouse Visa Minimum Income Threshold

Cynthia Barker writes...Good morning from a hot and humid London. Bad news for British residents wishing to sponsor a non-EU partner or spouse for a UK visa, but earning less than £18,600 per year. As 4000 pending family visa applications can now expect a refusal decision, the Home Office has welcomed a Court of Appeal judgment, “upholding the lawfulness of the income threshold under the new family migration rules”.

The Home Office introduced the minimum income threshold for British citizens to sponsor a non-EEA spouse or partner or child to come and live in the UK in July 2012.

Home Office, London

The tough new immigration rules – widely criticized for tearing families apart - were subject to a successful legal challenge, which the Home Office appealed leaving thousands of spouse visa cases on hold while awaiting a judgment.

The UK government brought in the minimum income threshold to ensure that family migrants do not become reliant on the taxpayer for benefits and can integrate into British society.

Presumably the Home Office feels that migrants who have a partner earning more than £18,600 are more likely to integrate?

The controversial minimum income rule was set by the Home Office, based on advice from the independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), at £18,600 for sponsoring a non-EU spouse or partner, rising to £22,400 for also sponsoring a child and an additional £2,400 for each further child.

Family life in the UK, but not at taxpayer’s expense, says Home Office Minister.

Immigration and Security Minister James Brokenshire said:

“I am delighted that the Court of Appeal has comprehensively upheld the lawfulness of this important policy.

“We welcome those who wish to make a life in the UK with their family, work hard and make a contribution, but family life must not be established in the UK at the taxpayer’s expense and family migrants must be able to integrate.

“The minimum income threshold to sponsor family migrants is delivering these objectives and this judgment recognises the important public interest it serves.”

The Appeal Court judgment overturns an earlier High Court judgment from July 2013, which was supportive of the approach but found that the impact of the minimum income threshold on family life could be disproportionate.

Visa applications on hold will now receive a decision

The Home Office added that from the 28 July, the 4,000 individuals whose visa applications are currently on hold, pending this judgment, will now receive a decision:

“These are cases which met all the requirements apart from the minimum income threshold and now stand to be refused.”

The news will be devastating for those families who were hoping that the courts would overturn the minimum income rules, which are keeping them apart, but will now receive a visa refusal.

EEA family permit applications unaffected

Many British expats have also been hit by the rules when returning from a job overseas, obviously without a UK job, but unable to take their non-EU spouse or partner to join them in Britain.

The unfair thing about these rules, for British citizens living in the UK, is that European EEA nationals can ignore these 'minimum income' rules and walk through the UK border with their entire extended non-EU family under EU/EEA regulations. Many UK citizens are now taking up EU residence in order to beat the Home Office family visa restrictions. Want to know more - email me!

If you have been affected by changes or need advice on any immigration matter, including overstaying your visa, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

Appeal Cases Keeping Me Busy As Home Office Refuse Leave To Remain

Cynthia Barker writes...Another manic day, saw three sets of clients and 10 people today! Home Office appeal cases are keeping us soooo busy, but I wish clients would come to me with their visa refusals a little earlier than 24 hours before the deadline to lodge an appeal!

Some of the refusals by Home Office case workers for further leave to remain or partner visas are just plain daft!

In one case, a client was refused due to "inconsistencies in answers" during a Home Office interview for an EEA residence card for the non-EU wife of a Romanian national.

In the appeal evidence our appeal specialist actually refers to an old TV show called 'Mr and Mrs' in which married couples are secretly questioned about their partners habits and tastes.

The show was very popular and ran for decades because even couples who had been married for 50 years would give the wrong answers!

Back to our client's appeal. During the Home Office interview the wife was asked if her husband smoked. She said he had "given up".

But when the husband was questioned in another room he admitted to the Home Office officers (but not his wife!) that he still smoked.

Based on these minor inconsistencies, the wife was refused an EEA residence permit, and we are appealing the Home Office refusal decision.

The appeal tribunal will involve highly paid immigration judges, clerks, administrators, lawyers and a home Office representative to fight their case (assuming they turn up), all of which will cost the British taxpayer a lot of money. They should have been granted the EEA residence card in the first place, without the need for an interview.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, including overstaying your visa, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

See also: Home-office-wins-appeal-on-spouse-visa

Foreign Criminal Wins Human Rights Appeal To Remain In UK Indefinitely As Immigration Judge Stops Deportation

Cynthia Barker writes...Yet another convicted foreign killer has successfully appealed to win the right to remain in the UK indefinitely on the basis that human rights under Article 8 would be breached if he was deported and separated from his extended family in Britain, Immigration Judges have ruled against the Home Office.

The Immigration Judges also granted the Somali man anonymity and he can only be identified by the initials MAI. The man had been sentenced to a five year stretch in Prison for manslaughter and also has a string of other violent criminal convictions.

At the Upper Tribunal last month, Immigration Judges ruled that MAI’s rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which preserves the right to "private and family life", would be breached if the Home Office deported him back to Somalia.

His immigration lawyers also claimed he would be attacked in his homeland by relatives of the man he killed, a further breach of human rights laws since his life would be in danger.

Doesn't the victim also have relatives here in the UK? And perhaps he should have thought about the dangers of revenge killing before he took his victims life?

Following a series of convictions including Home Secretary Theresa May attempted to deport MAI in August 2012 on the grounds that it would be “conducive to the public good” because of his violent history.

MAI appealed to the lower tier tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, which overturned the Home Office deportation order on Article 8 grounds.

MAI said would be the target of a “blood feud” by the family of the FA, who he killed in Cardiff in 1997, who was a member of the Somali Habr Awal tribe.

The Home Office appealed against the lower tier tribunal’s judgment arguing the court had “attributed insufficient weight to the public interest” and that MAI was a “persistent offender”.

At the upper tribunal in April, Judge Nicholas Renton upheld the earlier ruling, blocking MAI deportation from the UK.

The ruling stated:

“The panel found that the appellant had a family life in the UK with his mother, his adult siblings, and his niece, nephew and cousins.

“The appellant also had a private life. The panel concluded that the interference with that family and private life as a consequence of the appellant’s deportation was not proportionate.

“In reaching that decision the panel found compelling and therefore exceptional factors in the appellant’s favour being the fact that excluding the time spent in prison, the appellant had lived in the UK for over 20 years.”

Home Office spokesman said they would appeal against the decision.

A Home Office spokesman said: “We firmly believe foreign nationals who break the law should be deported and we are appealing the tribunal’s decision.

“Under our Immigration Bill, those with no right to be here will not be able to prevent deportation simply by dragging out the appeals process.

“The Bill will reduce 17 rights of appeal to four, and give the full force of law to our policy that foreign criminals should be deported despite their claim to a family life.” 

Whilst this type of human rights judgment in not uncommon, in the case the man is unmarried and has no children. MAI, aged 38, claimed he should not be deported by the Home Office as it would breach his human rights to be separated from his mother, adult siblings, and other family.

I have seen Tier 4 students deported for overstaying their visas even though they had British parents and extended family in the UK. In some cases the students, often from Filipino families, were unwilling to appeal or fight their removal orders from the Home Office.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, including overstaying your visa, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

UK Visitors Faced Long Queues At London Heathrow After Border Force Computers Fail

Cynthia Barker writes…Thank god it’s Friday! Public holiday on Monday, so looking forward to a long weekend, yippee! Not so great for holiday travellers and UK visitors who faced long queues at London Heathrow Airport following a fault on UK Border Force computers today.

International passengers arriving at a number of British airports have reportedly been told they may have to wait of up to four hours to get their passports stamped. Wow, almost as long as USA immigration!

A Home Office spokesman said: "We are currently experiencing temporary IT problems which may add to the time taken to conduct passport checks.

"We are working to rectify this issue and are providing extra staff to get passengers through the controls as quickly as possible. Our priority remains security of the border.

"We apologise for any additional time this adds to passengers' journeys."

Passengers, most non-EU, reported problems at passport border control desks, largely affecting those trying to enter the country. The non-EU line for immigration control is always jammed full of people waiting to enter the UK and this extra delay will make things even worse.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers go through Heathrow every day and this bank holiday weekend will be crazy. Hopefully things will get sorted out soon.

I have spent many hours waiting for migrant nurses, care workers and students to arrive at Heathrow Terminal 3 and 4. The flights from the Philippines nearly always arrived at 6am! And British Airways always landed early. 

Although I hated getting up in the middle of the night to go to the airport I knew that those arriving on early flights usually faced fewer hassles, such as medical examinations, and were less likely to be detained.

I dreaded having to pick up that dirty yellow phone on the wall to speak to an immigration officer. Still, we won most of our appeals and none of our nurses got deported back onto the flight home.  

Visitors on UK visit visas are not always so lucky. Classic cases are those who arrive on a UK tourist visa from a visa national country, such as the Philippines, Nigeria or India, carrying their CV's and job applications! 

Obviously, the immigration border officer will not believe you are a genuine tourist if your real intention is to work illegally or try and switch visas once you are in the UK.

Other problems occur when visitors fail to declare a relationship in the UK, for instance a Fiance, which will also arouse suspicion when the immigration control office searches your luggage only to find a love letter!

Have a great weekend if you are flying off to somewhere nice...if not, have a boring one at home! Ha ha!

If you need advice on any immigration matter, including overstaying your visa, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

Home Office Approves UK Visa for Jamaican Kidney Donor - eventually

Cynthia Barker writes...Good morning from a cloudy Monday in in London. The Home Office finally approved a UK visa application for Keiha Rusthton, the Jamaican Sister of Oliver Cameron, who is suffering from Kidney failure in Britain and will die unless he is matched with a Kidney Donor.

Oliver Cameron, from Stoke Newington in north-east London, has to undergo dialysis three times a day and has been off work for two years whilst awaiting a donor.

His sister is a perfect donor match, was refused a visa to travel to the UK from Jamaica to donate the organ because Home Office entry clearance officer (ECO) felt she would not return home or overstay her visa.

Following a blaze of publicity, the Home Office has since reversed the decision and Keiha has arrived in the UK.

She told BBC News that she has no intentions of overstaying her visa in the UK and has a life back in Jamaica where she has 7 children and a fiance.

British Embassy ECO's are always cautious about issuing visitor visas to applicants from poorer countries where there is little financial incentive to return home before their visa expires.

In this case, what if the donor, god forbid, developed complications and need further treatment? How would it look if the Home Office tried to deport her while she was sick and would die back home?

Whilst I'm sure she has no intentions of remaining in the UK any longer than her visa term, the Home Office has probably had past experience where similar cases have turned into appeals and human rights campaigns to remain in the UK. Many Tier 4 students have come in on temporary student visas and then stayed on in the UK after getting married or having a child, although that was not their original intention when they submitted their visa application.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

How To Waste £500 Million On 'e borders' System That Cannot Control Immigration Or Visa Overstayers

Cynthia Barker writes…Unbelievable! The Home Office has blown £500m on a computer system for its ‘e-Borders’ control programme - to check everybody coming in and out of Britain – but ministers have now admitted that it cannot estimate immigration.

Home Office official told MPs on the Public Administration Select Committee (PAC) that data from the programme, which took 10 years and half a billion pounds to build, cannot be used to replace the existing methods of estimating net migration to Britain because it does not collect information about whether passengers are long-term migrants or just visitors or tourists.

What? Did someone forget to ask that question? Hello!!!

The Home Office are saying that it would be illegal under European Union legislation on ‘free movement’ to ask passengers how long they intend to stay or their purpose in entering the UK. Another example of how EU and EEA rules help immigrants. However,since EU/EEA migrants are only allowed to stay in the UK for 90 days without exercising treaty rights, for instance as a self-employed worker, self-sufficient person or student, it would seem logical to ask the question at the border?

The truth of the matter is the Home Office has no idea exactly how many illegal immigrants or visa overstayers are in the UK because there is no system to count them in or out. I recently put this question to Theresa May, the Home Secretary in charge of the Home Office, when I met her. She admitted that there have been problems with border control going back over 15 years, but said the e borders scheme will be operational by 2015.

There have been various estimates that there are between 500,000 and 750,000 overstayers in the UK. The ippr (Institute for Public Policy Research) said it will take 20 years and £5 billion to track them all down and deport them. Let's face it...it's not going to happen, so we need to start looking at workable plans to deal with the situation such as a legalisation programme for overstaying migrants - as long as we don't mention the unmentionable word "amnesty"!

Even when an overstayer is picked up by the Home Office (usually after a tip-off) they can appeal against a removal order on human rights 'article 8' or 'right to a family life' grounds if they own a cat (not really unless you believe the Daily Mail) are in a relationship, or especially if they have children. The same law applies even if you are a convicted murder or rapist - a Jamaican killer was allowed to stay because he said he was gay! Illegal immigrants often spend months in detention centres, at great cost to the government, only to be released on appeal and eventually granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR) or permanent residency in the UK.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

UK has jobs jobs jobs but not enough skilled workers to fill vancancies

Cynthia Barker writes...good morning, or afternoon, evening depending on where you are reading 'Diary of an Immigration Adviser' from! Thank God it's Friday! Looking forward to the weekend and recharging my batteries - I WILL get to the gym!

Yesterday I wrote about how victims of domestic violence can apply for special leave to remain. Today I want to talk about a slightly happier subject - the economy and UK jobs.

The British economy is well on the way to recovery, especially in London and the South East of England where house prices are literally going through the roof. All these Chinese and Russians investors buying multi-million pound pads in Kensington and Chelsea. Tier 1 Investor Visas are proving very popular by the way - if you have a bit of cash a fancy starting a business here.

When the property market is on the move, jobs tend to follow, and there are plenty of job vacancies in the UK. The London Chamber of Commerce this week announced that businesses in the capital are short of skilled, qualified staff needed to keep the economy growing.

The Home Office are introducing a special highly skilled Tier 1 visa category for IT workers, the first expansion in managed migration to the UK, albeit limited to a few hundred visas a year, for many years.

NHS Trusts, as well as private Care providers, are also so short of nurses and carers that they are spending millions of pounds each year on highly paid temporary agency staff. I predict that we will see a return to nurse recruitment from my native Philippines in 2104/15, which is great because they have a surplus of trained nurses and we have a shortage of RGN's in the UK.

Back to UK jobs. Despite high unemployment, in London at least there have always been jobs available to those who want to work.

There are probably close to a million job vacancies in the UK right now, yet there are twice that number of people registered as unemployed! So how can there be all these vacancies when there are enough unemployed workers to fill them?

The answer is not simple. There are some people on benefits who either don't want to work, because they are happy to live cheap and get their rent paid by the rest of us taxpayers. There are others who cannot take a low paid job because they will be worse off working than on welfare benefits - the benefits trap.

However, the real reason there is an imbalance of job vacancies to "available" labour is that large numbers of the people on welfare are not sufficiently qualified to do the jobs which need doing!

There are not many unemployed nurses and doctors, or skilled IT workers or Carers. Nurses can earn up to £50 per HOUR for a weekend shift and care support workers can find a job anywhere in the country.

The reason employers have to look overseas to recruit the highly qualified staff is they cannot find enough of them here in the UK.

Employers are actively recruiting right now in EU countries, such as Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and new member Croatia. The non-EU market will I feel open up soon as nursing and care shifts go unfilled and patients are put at risk.

Anyway, I should get back to work myself! I have a visa refusal client coming in soon to see our appeal specialist. Wish me luck!

If you are the victim of abuse or domestic violence, or need advice on any immigration matter, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 020 8731 5972 or email her your details and number Immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is an OISC registered Immigration Adviser with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.