Rejecting the Tory application

How to treat the Tory application for re-election:

Recent cases on family immigration

Two recent cases on sponsoring spouses/partners, which I dicsuss briefly below, with [X] denoting the relevant paragraph from the judgment.  I urge those interested enough to read the full judgment for a more complete understanding and forming your own views.

SS & Ors vs SSHD from Court of Appeal last week, on the relationship between immigration rules and Article 8 (right to family life) was disappointing. Judges [13] suggest although rules may not fulfil requirements of European Convention on Human Rights, as Theresa May can exercise her discretion outside the rules they are not unlawful (!).  The fact that she doesn't seems to hold apparently has no bearing.

Judges overturned the appeals in front of them where they had succeeded at tribunal solely on the basis of the MM case at High Court case in which Justice Blake determined the rules overall were disproportionate and unlawful, by referring to the more recent CoA judgment in the same case.[27].

I find myself increasingly frustrated that judges just don't get it, coming out with same old trite statements that State has right to interfere where 'fair balance has to be struck between competing interests of the individual and community as a whole'. (105)  How they can't see that these rules damage the community as a whole is beyond me.  Our family would have no recourse to public funds; research shows they are net contributors; experience and common sense suggest breaking up families causes irreversible harm with strain on NHS, welfare groups and benefits system.

The court agreed State is obliged to respect family life and act in a manner to allow ties between close relatives to develop normally, however as the principle of respect is not defined, the State has a wide margin to work within. [106-7]. Desk-head-bang moment.

There was some weight on precariousness of the immigration status at the time family life was established, finding the situation more favourable where a British citizen had lived abroad with their spouse for years but with a change in circumstances, now wished to return home, than where someone got married knowing they would need to meet the immigration rules.  However from what I understand of the judgment, even the prior case isn't that strong because the fall-back option for the State is always that the family can live together outside the UK.

Frankly, I think it's quite cheeky for the Queen on our British passports to ask other countries to "allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary" when they don't do so for their own citizens!

However, tis not all doom and gloom. I extend my thanks to the barristers at 1 Crown Office Row for sharing details of the Mirza case at Inner House (Scottish equivalent of CoA) adopting a respectful attitude towards families and Brits, in ruling at [18]:

"...as a British citizen, the petitioner’s wife cannot be required to leave the United Kingdom.  Both under ordinary principles of common law and international law she has the right to live within the United Kingdom.  That right is reflected in the terms of section 1(1) of the Immigration Act 1971 which provides that a British citizen, such as the petitioner’s wife, is “free to live in the United Kingdom without let or hindrance”.

The judges go on at [20] to criticise the HO suggestion many readers will be familiar with, that the couple live in applicant's home country if they wanted to be together, by pointing out the hypocrisy underlying wanting Pakistan to accord Pakistani citizens the right to live with a non-national spouse, when UK was not willing to do the same for British citizens.  If only we were all Scottish did you say?

Read more on this at the UK Human Rights blog.

Jack Dee's Election Helpdesk and spousal visa


Lewis Clark, a victim of the family division rules (his wife-to-be is American), shares his story with a group of comedians who can't really help. Still, a problem shared is a problem halved, as they say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b05s9fx3/jack-dees-election-helpdesk-episode-2 - from about 9:30.

The general incredulity that the poor lad gets is quite breathtaking really. Good luck Lewis, if you read this, and thanks for sharing the issue (which apparently even hip socially-aware comedians know very little about)!

(Thanks to Sanjee for sharing the link).

Families of the Week

Special feature this week with the release of the much awaited Price of Love documentary, by Don McVey. Some of you may recall seeing him at the London demo outside the Home Office on 9th July last year with a handful of you interviewed on the day as well.  The result is an extremely powerful and moving account of the devastation wreaked by UK's immigration rules on British citizens:

Alison & Tanik - with their two daughters have moved to Ireland as only means to live together, and indeed live at all, given events in Turkey.

Gethin & Elena - parents, children, siblings separated.  Mum and child in Russia. Dad and child in Wales.

Sally & Walter - battling against the HO's deportation attempts, whilst simultaneously battling cancer.

The fantastic video online at: http://www.priceoflovedoc.com/  where you'll probably see familiar faces - maybe even yourself!

BritCits newsletter 29th April 2015

The most recent news-letin from 29th April can be read here with previous versions available by clicking on 'Past Issues' on the top left hand side of the same link.

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BritCits newsletter 24th April 2015

The most recent news-letin from 24th April can be read here with previous versions available by clicking on 'Past Issues' on the top left hand side of the same link.

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Death in Detention

DEATH IN DETENTION

Just when my opinion of HO and its vile practices could sink no lower, 33 year old Pinakin Patel, who with his wife Bhavisha, had been locked up in Yarl's Wood for over two months, died in detention this week. The young couple from India had hoped to visit family and friends and visit Scotland for a 10-day holiday, but were refused entry and detained.

Their crime? Although they held visitor visas, itinerary and return tickets, Bhavisha carried evidence of her qualifications, making immigration officers suspect the couple was entering UK, with its gold-paved streets, to work.

I believe Bhavisha's claims that she brought the docs with her only because she didn't know what would be needed at the border.  It's entirely possible the couple had submitted these in order to obtain the visit visa, so maybe they thought it would be needed at immigration too. (Incidentally, if one really wants to enter the UK to work illegally, surely a mastermind would post the docs from overseas?).  IOs either discovered the qualifications or the couple volunteered them - former suggests profiling and targeting (remember Radha Patel?), the latter, obviously innocence.

On the off-chance IOs did catch the couple entering the UK to work unlawfully (although this is infinitely better than when Brits entered India purely to exploit), detaining them for so long rather than putting them on a return flight, is a disproportionate response, exacerbated by the fact that the couple offered to leave one month in at Yarl's Wood. Perhaps the couple sought asylum as a means to at least being allowed in to make their case - tickets and visas don't come cheap - but they did subsequently seem to give up hopes of seeing our sites and offered to leave which whatever their actual motives, HO should have taken up.

However, HO enjoys keeping people in detention indefinitely, whilst subsequently spending millions deporting them in a show of might, even spending our money to persuade judges that foreigners must be removed.  So rather than take up the offer of voluntary departure, HO insisted the couple had to stay until their case was processed - I reckon it helps their statistics to show how fantastically powerful they are which probably makes Theresa May purr!

I'm ashamed to be funding this government. I'm upset that an innocent man died. I'm saddened Bhavisha is grieving without support of friends & family in a strange nation which at best treats people wanting to work without the right papers like hard-core criminals, at worst imprisons tourists. And I'm fuming that Bhavisha is still locked up.

While it's humbling to see other detainees rallying in support of Bhavisha's release, I wonder what kind of life she will have when eventually allowed to return to India - haunted by memories of the last few months of her marriage spent in detention, knowing her husband's death in a stressful situation might have been avoided had he not been trapped; regret that if only they had chosen another country to visit and make memories in; maybe even guilt for obtaining qualifications that have proven to be so expensive.

My sympathies to Pinakin's parents mourning their son's loss without his body to pay last respects to. No doubt they won't be allowed here for his funeral.

Read more in this article from the Independent.

Update 24/04/15: We understand Bhavisha has now been released from Yarl's Wood but is still in the UK with family.

BritCits Divided Family of the Week - Paul & Connie

Paul & Connie

“No one should be punished for something as harmless as loving someone from outside their borders.”

Paul is a British citizen living in Nottingham.  He met his wife, Connie from California, USA when he was pursuing postgraduate studies in response to the economic crash when jobs were scarce.

Now this couple is 6000 miles apart only because of UK’s immigration rules.

Paul is in education – and neither he nor Connie come from rich families.  They feel the £18,600 is an arbitrary barrier serving to punish the poor.   Paul is firm in his belief that this threshold has been erected under false pretence, the notion that immigration is somehow responsible for the myriad economic and social woes besetting the people of the UK is actually a xenophobic smokescreen to confuse the public.

The couple has strived and struggled for the last three years, stuck apart, only seeing each other for a scant few weeks but they know their story is far from the worst.  Families have been thrown asunder, punished for loving each other across petty political borders we uphold.

Paul and his wife have both suffered from depression, each of them undergoing therapy, just trying to survive apart without any certainty of when they will be able to be together.

Recently though they received some good news.  Connie has been successful in obtaining a well-paid job despite the current economic conditions.  So Paul is considering relocating to USA, although this means being away from his own family and friends in the UK, and living in exile from the UK.