Multinational families threatened with separation or exile by tough new income thresholds for living together in the UK are planning legal action to overturn the “cruel and inhumane” policy.
Thousands of families with a British partner and a foreign-born child will be hit by the government’s announcement that from next spring only people earning £38,700 – up from £18,600 – will be allowed to bring family members to join them. Many may be forced to either live separately or leave Britain to be together.
Reunite Families, a support and campaigning organisation for people affected by immigration rules, has instructed law firm Leigh Day to explore legal options to challenge the changes announced by Home Secretary James Cleverly on 4 December, which one affected family said amounted to “being punished for falling in love”.
Hundreds of people whose lives could be turned upside down by the new rules have contacted the Guardian, warning that they will have to leave the UK if they want to stay with their foreign partners. Many work in sectors where there is a severe shortage of workers, such as care and social work.
One care worker, 50, said the rule was “ruining our plans for a happy future”; an academic, 35, said: “These new rules scare me”; a marketing manager said: “Separating families is an atrocity”; and a music teacher, 35, facing a move to Kazakhstan, said she felt the comfort she had worked for “slipping away”.
A Cambridge University administrator said she and her Moroccan partner were being kept apart by the existing salary threshold and were experiencing age-related fertility problems, meaning “this whole system has basically cost us the chance to have our own family”.
The measure was announced as part of what Cleverly called a “crackdown on those who try to jump the queue and exploit our immigration system”.
Grounds for a legal challenge could include the government’s handling of impact assessments of the rule change, questioning how the new minimum income of £38,700 was reached, or whether the change interferes with the right to family life under the 70-year-old European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK helped draft and remains bound by.
“I have never seen our community so galvanised and upset,” said Caroline Coombs, co-founder and chief executive of Reunite Families, who said the threshold was a “terrible shock for tens of thousands of British citizens and their loved ones… To announce it just before Christmas and leave people with no details is just utterly cruel”.
Meanwhile, new analysis shows that the doubling of the threshold means that most people in large parts of the UK will no longer earn enough to live with a partner from abroad, creating a new north-south divide. Three-quarters of people can afford to bring a loved one from abroad, but under the new threshold more than 60% will not be able to, rising to 75% in the North East of England.
People in the North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, the North West, the East Midlands, Wales and Northern Ireland will be hardest hit, with the South East least affected.
“We have instructed the law firm Leigh Day to advise us on possible legal options,” said Reunite Families. “Given the absolute lack of information currently available on the policy, we are seeking further details of the policy from the Home Secretary as a first step.”
The government has left open the possibility that even families already living together in the UK under the existing rules could be split up or forced to move abroad if they do not meet the new criteria when their visas come up for renewal. The Home Office said it would ‘confirm further details in due course’.
But Coombs said: “They need answers now – not next week or next year. For children up and down the country, this is an exciting time to spend with mum and dad and it’s just heartbreaking to know that so many caught up in this won’t get the chance to be with either of them now, or possibly ever. Even Scrooge and the Grinch saw the light – let’s hope the government does too.
Cleverly suggested this week that the new rules should be “forward-looking rather than backward-looking”, suggesting that multinational families already in the UK earning less than the salary threshold could still be safe.
The Supreme Court has previously struck down the government’s visa rules. In February 2017, it called for changes to the way the existing minimum income rule is enforced, saying the government has a duty to “safeguard and promote the welfare of children”.
In cases where a family visa applicant failed to meet the income threshold, decision-makers were told to consider ‘exceptional circumstances’, which could mean that a refusal would breach the right to family life under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Opposition to the threshold change has ranged from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, who told the House of Lords he was concerned about the ‘negative impact it will have on marriage and family relationships’, to Labour’s shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who said the new rules could lead to a ‘big increase in rushed marriages’ in the months before they come into force.
Marriage counselling charity Relate told the Guardian that a rush to cement relationships because of the impending increase in the earnings threshold carried risks.
“Rushing into a long-term relationship before you feel ready can be quite traumatic and can prove very difficult, especially if there is pressure,” said Ammanda Major, its head of service quality and clinical practice. “If one partner says, ‘We need to get married to do this’, it’s easy to get carried away… You can get a bit blind in the rush.”
The Home Office has said the higher salary threshold is needed so that overseas family members joining British citizens “do not become a burden on the state”. It said families could be exempted in “exceptional circumstances where there would be unjustifiably harsh consequences for the applicant, their partner, a relevant child or another family member if their application were refused”.
“The Prime Minister has made clear that current levels of migration to the UK are far too high,” said a Home Office spokesman. “We have a long-standing principle that anyone bringing dependents to live in the UK must be able to support them financially. The minimum income requirement ensures that families are self-sufficient, rather than reliant on public funds, and have the ability to integrate if they are to play a full part in British life.”
