Couples are fighting to stay in Britain because income is more important than family ties

When Leah Boleyn gives birth to her and husband Mohamed Ragab’s first child later this year, he won’t be there to share the special moment with his wife.

Instead, he will return home to Egypt, where he remains stranded and unable to join Mrs Boleyn due to the UK’s spousal visa rules, which have just become even stricter and now require her to earn at least £29,000, up from £18,600, or have £88,500 in savings.

The couple are now once again embroiled in a game of snakes and ladders with the British immigration bureaucracy to be allowed to live together in Britain.

In a cruel twist, Mrs Boleyn had actually reached the previous requirement of having £56,000 in savings before the rules changed, so it’s back to square one and we’re having daily conversations on the phone as they try to find a route for him to join can add her. Britain.

‘I’m giving birth here alone, without him. So by the time he meets his first baby, he will probably be about a month old. It’s terrible,” she said The national one.

Mr Ragab said he would not even be allowed to come to Britain on a tourist visa to be present on one of the most important days of his life.

“It is tough. It is not allowed for a husband to be present at the birth and then return to his country,” he said.

Another British citizen The national one Lance Buck said he felt “betrayed” by the threshold increase as he fights to be reunited with his Moroccan wife Ikram.

He found a new job with a salary that “threw the old requirement out the window”, but “the next day they changed it” and the situation he is in now is “just terrible”.

He filed below the old threshold and has paid £7,500 in fees on top of the lawyers’ bills. If he is rejected and has to reapply, he “can’t comply,” leaving him with only one option.

“So that will be me saying goodbye to my entire family. I will never come back because this is treason,” he said.

Both are backed by campaigners Reunite Families UK, whose executive director Caroline Coombs said couples in their situation are “collateral damage” in the political battle over migration, and that the income requirements and huge fees they have to pay are “a burden on their income”. Love”.

Deception

Rules on minimum income requirements for spousal visas will become even stricter next year, when anyone wanting to sponsor their foreign partner to live in Britain will have to earn at least £38,700.

The increases are widely seen as part of the UK government’s efforts to reduce net migration by around 300,000 people.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was criticized last year when it was announced that net migration had reached a record 745,000, despite reducing this number being a prominent driver of Brexit. Mr Sunak is also under pressure to make good on his pledge to stop migrants crossing the English Channel.

Mrs Boleyn met her husband while on holiday in Sharm el-Sheikh in January 2023. He works as a diving instructor but has a bachelor’s degree in accounting.

The couple married in Egypt early this year and the marriage was registered with the British embassy.

After becoming pregnant, she gave up her job as a branch manager of a recruitment company, but her savings are said to have helped her through. Her reaction to hearing about the latest rule changes was “total devastation”.

“Those who this really affects horribly are mothers who are juggling motherhood and work. They need their husbands to support them financially.”

Mr Ragab described how the couple went from having the prospect of reunion in Britain within their reach to having it taken away. They were prepared to bear the rising one-off costs of the residence visa, but what really came as a blow was the jump in the annual qualifying income required by the state from the British partner.

“We had some savings and we depended on that money to apply for the visa. We were working on it and it was within our reach,” he said. “And then we went to sleep and woke up to this news and the big (profit threshold) jump from £18,000 to £38,000. Oh my god, this destroyed everything. our plans. After the increase, it is now out of our league.”

Family torn apart

He explained that his wife will travel to Egypt with their new baby and then return to Britain with the aim of getting a job with a salary of £38,000.

‘Can you imagine leaving your newborn baby in another country just to go back to work so I can go to Britain?’ he said.

The couple are currently investigating whether he can apply to come to Britain on a skilled worker visa if he obtains further accounting qualifications that he can use in Britain.

Like many others in her situation, Mrs Boleyn is irritated by the suggestion that migrants like her husband are a burden on British taxpayers.

Like all new migrants, he would have to pay a hefty surcharge to use the National Health Service, on top of the contributions deducted from his salary. He would also not be entitled to state benefits for a number of years.

Mrs Boleyn is convinced that her husband can contribute to British society.

“You know, let’s say Mohamed could come along and work for a small business for the next thirty years, a champion of that small business, showing up to work every day. Why isn’t he valuable?”

According to data from The Migration Observatory, part of the University of Oxford, the new £29,000 threshold effectively excludes half the UK population.

While the number of people actually affected is small and it is unlikely to have much impact on migration rates, it nevertheless has a “significant impact on individuals”.

Reunite Families UK, a group that supports partners seeking a partner visa and campaigns for changes to the rules, calculates that the rule will affect those working for the Home Office or the NHS, as well as lawyers, teachers and other professionals.

“The point is that yes, it affects a small percentage of the population, but the effect is huge and you have children who are separated from their fathers for years,” Ms Boleyn said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Buck said he spends a large amount of money traveling to spend time with his wife.

“The stress is not just for me and my wife or me, but for my whole family. I also have to spend more money on traveling to Morocco.”

Not just for the rich

He explained that the couple got married in Morocco last November, saying: “She has been my rock ever since – without her I would be nothing.”

Mr Buck said he “works in finance and she loves her job”, and, like Mrs Boleyn with her husband, believes she is the type of person who can make a positive difference to Britain.

He says the government’s new spouse visa rules “will not stop people coming here illegally, but it will stop people coming here who want to make a difference”.

“The government has lost the war against people who come here illegally, so they have decided to attack people who come here legally,” he said.

Mrs Coombs, from Reunite Families UK, worked for her Ecuadorian husband for almost two years to move to Britain. She said The national one: “Leah and Lance’s experiences with the rules are unfortunately too common among members of our community.”

She said it was “outrageous that, despite evidence of the negative impact of the rules, the government has increased the minimum income requirement without consulting the people affected”.

The increase also continued as the government published an impact assessment of the rules, “something that has also recently been strongly criticized by a House of Lords committee”.

Members of her organization are also outraged that many of the MPs who voted for the increases have partners who were born abroad.

“We cannot accept this continued discrimination,” she said. “Love is for everyone, not just rich people.”

Updated: May 4, 2024, 4:00 AM