Hold your Member of Parliament to account for the crazy Non-EU family visa Rule!

I am an immigration solicitor, and I’m getting sick and tired of the politicians double talk. I have dealt with numerous cases helping British citizens who are struggling to bring in their spouse due to the recent immigration rules, mainly the financial requirements. In such cases the politicians i.e. members of Parliament have been more than willing to provide a letter stating how disgusted they by the rules. However, it begs the question, who passed these rules? All the blame seems to be pointed at the UKBA and the Secretary of State, depicting her as a rogue legislator legislating against the will of the people. But is this the true picture?

The Secretary of State is empowered by the Parliament and passed these rules by a special procedure called “negative resolution procedure”. In simple words all the Secretary of State needs to do is to table the proposed law in parliament for specified days during which members of Parliament can put up objections and trigger a debate against the law. The proposals rules become law automatically after the specified days. So the question to ask a member of Parliament next time you go to his surgery for assistance about bringing your spouse from abroad, is what did he do when the Secretary of State tabled this rule before Parliament? Did he object to this law, or simply ignore it, so that he can appease both the EDL radicals and later the minority vote by pushing the blame onto the Secretary of State.

What financial sense does it make, for example, to stop a British citizen from bringing his foreign wife from America simply because he only earns £18,000 (one of the cases I have dealt with) with the pretense that this is to prevent her from accessing public funds. This is a fallacy because under the new rules and also under the old rules a foreign spouse would have no access to public funds.

Also as a British citizen, why should they not be allowed to bring in a foreign spouse, yet any EU citizen is allowed to bring a spouse from anywhere around the world with not one question asked and until recently, no fees paid. Which democratic society legislates laws which put its own citizens at a disadvantage?

These rules also mean that plenty of British citizen wives will have no option but to be single mothers, forced into benefits dependency as they cannot share their parental responsibility with the foreigner, who is stuck abroad. This would not be the case if their husbands were allowed to join them; providing the option of the mother returning to work while the foreign husband looks after the child/children, or vice-versa

As a non EU husband married to a British national and also as a solicitor specialising in immigration law, I am alarmed at the direction that the government is taking and I am determined to fight tooth and nail for the Human Rights of British nationals with a foreign spouse.