Beware! Foreign Wives of British Citizens!

U.K. Supreme Court holds firm on minimum income rule

According the story of The Hindu, A minimum income rule that has made it harder for foreign spouses of British citizens to come to the U.K., has been upheld by the country’s Supreme Court. The ruling impacts thousand of British citizens with partners from non-European Union countries, including India. Over the past five years, a Briton hoping to bring a spouse to the U.K. from outside the E.U. has had to earn at least £18,600 a year, with the figure rising to £22,400 if they had a child who was a non-E.U. citizen. The figure then increases by £2,400 for each child. There is also limited acknowledgement of the earning potential of the spouse, even if it exceeded that of their British partner, if they did not already have permission to work in the U.K.
The rule had been widely criticized by campaigners, who argued it left thousands of families divided, and children suffering stress and anxiety due to separation from a parent. The Children’s Commissioner of the U.K. said up to 15,000 children were impacted by the rule, which had created what they described as “Skype families” — who depend on technology to maintain contact with one parent as a result of the rules, leading to great stress and anxiety for these children. “This is not a surprising but a disappointing result. The rules may not be illegal, but they are unethical and immoral,” says Harsev Bains of the Indian Workers Association. “This impacts many working-class families in low income jobs,” he said, adding that the rule topped the list of concerns raised by Indian workers in the U.K. at the association’s meetings across the country. “We get many people who are in a great deal of distress, with this impacting their family life and well-being here,” he noted. The Supreme Court justices found that the minimum income requirement was “acceptable in principle”, adding that while the rules caused hardship, they had the “legitimate aim of ensuring that the couple do not have recourse to welfare benefits and have sufficient resources to play a full part in British life”.