Except the rules only apply to British citizens, because they are the only people they can apply these rules consistently to. Therefore we are left with the bizarre situation where it is easier for a French person in Britain to get their spouse in than a British person in Britain.
There are British people effectively exiled because they went abroad when young, got married and had a kid and cannot return with their family because they don't have a guaranteed job lined up in the UK paying 18k+. The spouses income is deemed irrelevant under the rules, so even if your non-EU spouse can earn well above that, it doesn't matter.
Ridiculous, borderline sick fiddling from the government that has severely damaged the family lives of tens of thousands of Britons.
You'll still be rejected out of hand and forced to resort to legal action however. You're right that the UK has targeted non-EU spouses and is intentionally obstructive, arbitrary and perverse in their dealings, all for the political ends you describe.
Is England obligated to take care of non citizens?
US has same rules.
Because separating families is immoral. If you don't think causing a parent and child to be separated is immoral then your list of immoral actions must be slim.
> Is England obligated to take care of non citizens?
You call them non-citizens, I call them dependants of UK citizens. Also the rules entirely ignore the spouse's earning potential which is stupid.
> US has same rules.
No it doesn't.
The US does have a minimum income level but firstly it is much lower, and additionally you can get numerous additional sponsors to combine incomes.
So someone in the US could get their parents as co-sponsors, and thus allowing even someone working at Walmart to bring in a foreign spouse and child.
Are spouses of people on this type of VISA allowed to work?
> Because separating families is immoral.
You do know the default answer to that is: "Fine, as paragons of morality, we will hereby no longer allow any foreign workers with spouses who make under XX,XXX to enter the UK, because separating them from their family is immoral."
Proviso: I believe in having substantially more open borders than we do today; I just don't think your argument to morality is a very good one.
Yes.
> You do know the default answer to that is: "Fine, as paragons of morality, we will hereby no longer allow any foreign workers with spouses who make under XX,XXX to enter the UK, because separating them from their family is immoral."
You completely misunderstand what is even being discussed.
We're talking about UK NATIONALS who if they earn below the threshold cannot bring in a foreign spouse or child.
We are NOT talking about foreign nationals on work visas and their ability to bring in other foreign nationals.
To use a specific example: If a UK national moved to the US, got married, and had a kid. If all three of them wanted to move to the UK, they would be separated for years. The UK national would have to move to the UK alone, get a job, earn 23K/year, and only then could they apply to bring the other two over. This ignores how long the visa process takes or how many years of work-history you need to get approval!
I mean, once the passport office finishes rejecting their paperwork because "it was printed on US letter paper" or "your cosigner's signature is too big" or "their signature was in blue ink". (I had to mail it all in four times.)
I live in the far east, in order to qualify for a residency visa, i have to show assets of at least $50,000. In fact i have to bind that in an accredited savings account. So minimum asset determinatiins for residency qualification is common and not a vile abnormality as sugested.
You have that backwards. British citizens are the ones it harms, they're the ones who cannot see their spouse or child.
> Are we saying that non citizens have the same rights of entry as citizens?
Dependants of British nationals should have the same rights, yes.
> So minimum asset determinatiins for residency qualification is common and not a vile abnormality as sugested.
We are talking about visas to bring a spouse or child into the country, you're talking about something else entirely. I don't see the connection. I also have no idea what country or visa type you're even referring to.
Forced marriages are already illegal under UK law, and additionally a foreign spouse cannot enter without support by a UK-national sponsor.
You cannot use extremely rare incidents to justify a policy of mass discrimination (against non-EU citizens, and UK nationals that are impacted).
> This law is intended to reduce that scenario which is a wide backdoor to normal immigration.
There's no backdoor. UK nationals are meant to be able to bring in spouses and children. The fact they cannot in some cases because they make the national median in salary is just disturbing.
Essentially poor people have one set of rules and affluent people have another.
I think that the situation you describe (forced marriage) could be illegal already and while it would be good to detect and punish the perpertrators of this kind of offence, to penalise a whole bunch of other people in their name seems somewhat excessive.
That being said, while it is fine for workers, what the UK government have tried to do to people on family visas is very immoral. And has caused a lot of families to be separated.
- To sponsor a spouse you must make: £18,600
- To sponsor a spouse and one child you must make: £22,400 (+£2,400 for each additional child).
For reference the medium salary in the UK is around £22,044, the average is around £26,500 but neither tell the whole story, the UK has a wide salary disparity (in particular London Vs. elsewhere), and some charities project that the above rules preclude over a third of the population from bringing in their family.
Can you imagine being separated from your spouse and child because you don't make enough? Even if that spouse is perfectly able to work? And the worst part is that a lot of people get caught in a poverty trap, where they don't make enough to pay for the skills that they would need to escape it.
The problem is these types of rules come from London where wages are much higher and from very affluent individuals who came from money. They typically impact the poorest parts of the UK, but as they say "out of sight out of mind." Who cares if someone in north England cannot see their family for years... Certainly not Westminister.