BritCits

Tejinder

“I am being forced to choose between my wife & kids, and my elderly parents.”

Tejinder is a British citizen living in Birmingham with his British wife and two British children.

He had arrived in the UK in 2005 to gain international experience in his domain. He grew to like the country, bought a house and naturalised in 2011.

Tejinder is one of three children. His younger brother lives in Switzerland, and his parents and sister in India.

His sister graduated from Leicester University with an MSc in bio-informatics, before returning to India to look after their parents.

Tejinder’s mum is over 65 years old and his dad 70. He is a retired senior class one officer who used to work for the Indian government. A dad who did all he could for his son.

They have visited Tejinder and their grandchildren many times on a family visit visa. However travelling back and forth is not very easy anymore and Tejinder’s sister can’t cope looking after them on her own.

So Tejinder sold his house, uprooted his wife and children and moved to India to fulfil his responsibility to look after his parents. However his wife and kids couldn’t adjust to life in India. It was just too foreign, too different.

So they returned to the UK in 2013. However Tejinder is racked with guilt at having abandoned his parents.

However he cannot abandon his wife and kids, or expect them to live in a country that is alien to them.

UK’s immigration rules have slammed the door shut on Tejinder being able to look after his parents, with no recourse to public funds. This man is at a loss on what to do next and the only option seems to be to go move to another EEA country, exercising the treaty rights afforded to him by the EU for family reunification – a right so clearly denied by his own government.