"I have never welcomed the weakening of family ties by politics or pressure" - Nelson Mandela.
"He who travels for love finds a thousand miles no longer than one" - Japanese proverb.
"Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence." - Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
"When people's love is divided by law, it is the law that needs to change". -
David Cameron.

Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quotes. Show all posts

Monday, 18 August 2014

Quoted for truth


'Law without justice will destroy us.' - Sarah Kendzior, commenting on the situation in St. Louis.

Sunday, 13 July 2014

Meanwhile...

Robert Reich :

'I’ve been watching media coverage of angry Americans at our southern border waiving signs and yelling slogans, insisting that the children – most of whom are refugees of the drug war we’ve created -- “go home” to the violence and death that war has created, and I wonder who these angry Americans are. I also wonder where their parents or grandparents or other ancestors came from, and what they were fleeing from or hoped for when they landed in America. I’m not suggesting we allow in anyone who wants to come here, but these are desperate children. Whatever happened to the generosity, decency, and big-heartedness of this country? Emma Lazarus’s poem engraved in 1903 on the Statue of Liberty reads: “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of our teeming shore. Send these, the homeless tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Why are we now allowing the hateful side of America to take center stage?'

Friday, 17 January 2014

Immigrant stories: The psychotherapist and the letter of proof.

http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2014/01/17/immigrant-stories-the-nhs-nurse-and-the-letter-of-proof

' The first in an occasional series of Immigrant Stories, shining a light on the people trapped in Britain's immigration system.

'She had the letter to prove it.

'When the Home Office told Mariam Harley Miller, a London psychotherapist, that she had just 28 days to leave the country it felt like a bad dream. But it wasn't. The clock was ticking on the Australian citizen and it would not stop, no matter how strenuously she pointed out they had made a mistake.

'She had in her possession a letter, sent by the Home Office, in which they assured her that her visa status was valid. It didn't matter. They wouldn't listen. She was trapped in a system which made no sense, with a timer ticking down to her departure date....'

More on the ongoing story of Harley Miller :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/harley-miller-in-uk.html
----

'... the world expects us to stand up for the principle that every person has the right to think and write and form relationships freely – because individual freedom is the wellspring of human progress.'
- Barack Obama, today, speaking on the NSA surveillance scandal (source: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/barack-obamas-speech-nsa-surveillance-full-text-1432773 )

Some people who need standing up for :
http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/stories

Friday, 1 November 2013

‘When you take Conservative plans to strengthen families   and encourage social responsibility, and add them the Liberal Democratic passion for protecting our civil liberties and stopping the relentless incursion of the state into the lives of individuals, you create a Big Society matched by big citizens. This offers the potential to completely recast the relationship between people and the state: citizens empowered; individual opportunity extended; communities coming together to make lives better. We believe that the combination of our ideas will help us to create a much stronger society: one where those who can, do; and those who cannot, we always help.
 - Cabinet Office 2010

Family reunification rules in the UK: Protecting or redefining citizenship through immigration controls? by Ana Maria Macouzet Menendez

http://www.scribd.com/doc/180330815/Dissertation-AnaMacouzet-edOCT-pdf

Thursday, 31 October 2013

'In fact, though, it seems to me that immigration appeals will essentially continue, albeit in more complex form, and that judicial reviews will considerably grow. As I previously wrote, families will not simply accept their own extinction. They will find ways to fight on.'

http://www.freemovement.org.uk/2013/10/31/immigration-appeals-judicial-review-immigration-bill/


Wednesday, 30 October 2013

Immigration Bill: Important quotes from Oral Evidence


Guest post by Ana Macouzet


Yesterday the House of Commons Public Bill Committee considering the Government's  Immigration Bill started hearing oral evidence. It is important to follow these meetings,  which are open to the public, to understand the measures being put forward and the serious effects they will have.

Adrian Berry, chair of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, had the following to say on some immigration measures proposed by the Bill, their (lack of) evidential  basis, and their effects (for more, see Hansard record:)

Limiting the right to appeal

‘The adjustment to section 82 (…) removes the right of appeal on points of law for the managed migration routes, which are the people who come in for work, for study and for family reunion purposes. The Home Office decision making in this area is extremely poor, as the appeals impact assessment notes. Some 50% of managed migration appeals are allowed on points of administrative law, and do not engage human rights or the refugee convention’.

‘There is an abolition of certificates of entitlement to the right of abode. That is the document that British citizens use to vindicate the fact that they are British citizens when they seek to rely on their British citizenship when overseas. It has nothing to do with foreign nationals’

‘To be clear, these are not people who are illegal entrants or overstayers. These are people who seek to take advantage of the immigration routes that are prescribed for migration into the UK. If they are right, and they are coming here for work or study, it is public policy that they should be allowed to enter the UK. If they do not have a judicial remedy against bad decision making, they will either try for a very expensive, privately funded judicial review, or they will not bother coming to the UK.’

‘What you have taken away are the rights of the ordinary Joes, who play by the rules and seek leave to enter and leave to remain, on ordinary administrative law points when they receive duff decisions. It is an extraordinary reversal of priorities from the intention to the outcome.’

Article 8

‘Clause 14, which deals with article 8 of the ECHR, seeks to put down a legislative marker as to what factors should be considered in the public interest. In so far as it does that, Parliament has the right to specify what it considers to be in the public interest. Whether it should specify the measures that are specified in clause 14 is a different question. We have concerns about the way in which it has gone about that task. So long as power is reserved to the judges to decide substantively whether there has been a violation of article 8, which is a task granted to them under the Human Rights Act 1998, there may be a sufficient safeguard. In its operation, however, clause 14 directs attention to some measures at the expense of others.’

‘In terms of whether the clause changes the landscape, what I would say is that it will not alter aspects of the way in which the balance is struck if article 8 requires certain matters to be taken into consideration, such as the best interests of the child. What it will do is change the shape of the public interest that is taken into consideration when the balance comes to be struck.’

Saturday, 6 April 2013

One to study

https://twitter.com/wytzia tweets :
Chakroun case made Holland lost big on asking very high income requirements
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62008CJ0578:EN:HTML

'The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.'

- UN Declaration of Human Rights :
http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/declaration/16.asp

Via email :
This family immigration law is punitive in the extreme. It punishes UK citizens because they are the only ones the government has control over. EU citizens can come and go without check. It is purely a numbers game being played by people without conscience and should be struck down.

The rules which seek to divide families, even to separate children from their parents, are unnatural and unsustainable. Those who introduced these rules have myopically disregarded the fact that for normal people, being with loved ones is one of the fundamental things of life.

In the hierarchy of needs, safety and love and belonging are core to life.

And people will not be denied their loved ones.

http://britcits.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/stories

Friday, 11 January 2013

Quotable quotes from those affected by the rules

“I never ever thought the day would come that I felt ashamed to be British, but that day has come.”
“My poor boys. First their mummy leaves them and now their daddy. They don't deserve this.”
“As British citizens we have fewer rights in Britain than our EU friends and
even their non-EU partners... ”
“..I can’t just move to another country to be with my fiancé as I still have three years left to complete my Masters degree. I cannot simply drop out of university and earn £18600, as I don’t have the work
experience and would not have the qualifications without the degree, to earn that figure. ..“
"If it’s impossible for us as lawyers to understand the rules, what hope is there that a layperson would be able to?"
“I would never wish for my worst enemy to be in the situation I am in now. I feel like I am being told
that I do not have the right to love whom I choose or to start a family when I want to.”
“All I have left is the hope that, one day, these rules will be made fairer, so I have a chance at the family life we so desperately want.”
“I served in the British army, defended British lives and the British way of life, and now am kept apart from my own wife and child... ”.
“My parents are much older than my wife's and we wanted to be closer to them, so my wife, our son and I could see more of them and help them out in their old age. Not too much to ask, is it... ?”
“UK puts a price tag on love”
“Expat in exile.”
“As a result he missed the birth of his first-born child.”
“This government will be remembered as directly and indirectly attacking the
most vulnerable in society....”
“They rejected the spouse application because of a technicality, knowing I would not meet the income criteria under the new rules, in another attempt to extort more money.”
“We're not asking for hand-outs, just the chance to live as a family unit.”
“I am keen for my small family to be near my parents, to gain recognition of our family as a legal unit and be around to look after my parents as they get older.”
“My life now is just about work, work, work ... and when I have time off, I am too fatigued to do
anything but sleep... .”
“I believe in my marriage vows, and am firm in my commitment to my wife.”
“I don’t know how anyone could expect me to be separated from my baby’s daddy ... until I get a job the UKBA agrees with, we miss out on special family moments and our baby misses out on his daddy.”
“Why is it that there is one rule for Europeans and another for British citizens, in Britain?”
“All we want is the opportunity to live together; we are a family, even if it is just the two of us.”
“What if my 92-year-old grandfather dies, without ever having met my wife, and she can’t even pay her last respects at his funeral?!”
“What married couple wants to spend twelve months – maybe more – living in separate countries?”
“In the Conservative pre-election waffle Mr Cameron made a great deal about his views on the sanctity of marriage and family values.”
“This is not how I expected my married life to be, a fight to be with my husband… .”
“Are these the family values the government wants to promote? Keeping parents and children/grandchildren apart ... breaking up husbands and wives?”
“I haven’t seen my wife and son in nearly a year and my family in Britain hasn’t met or held my son.”
“UKBA is happy to take the visa application fees, and find spurious reasons to reject visa applications, in order to take yet more fees....”
“It's about love. It’s about respect. And it's about responsibility.”
“The message we are getting from the UK government is that we are not rich enough to love... ”
“I am being punished by my country for exercising my right to marry who I want. I can’t be with my
daughter and grandchild – I can’t look after my grandma and parents because of these rules.”
“My wife is eminently employable, and would be a genuine asset to this country, yet we have to face choices no one should ever have to consider in a so-called "civilised" country – or any country for that matter!”
“When you marry somebody you love for richer or poorer, it should mean just that...I shouldn’t have to choose between being a mum and granddaughter, and being in love.”
“They said I was too old for my husband and our marriage would not be accepted in Moroccan culture and so, refused his visa.”
“I am in despair. My family has been kept apart for many years, despite playing by the rules...which the government keeps changing.”
“I am being pushed out of my own country by this government because I dared to fall in love, have a
baby with and marry a woman who is Japanese ”.
“It is ludicrous and unlawful to put a price on anybody’s marriage and love. We are human and deserve to be together with our loved ones.”
“I have to fulfil my duty to look after my mother in her 70s, and my 12-year old son, so I have no choice but to fight for my partner to come to the UK. In the meantime I go out to see him as often as I can, nearly 20 times in 5 years!!"
“We live a simple life …yet I am being kicked out of my own country”
“How do you explain to kids that we just don’t make enough money to be together as a family. We have tried to teach our children the importance of family and more so the importance of not judging people by what they have or how much money they make...”
“ My wife has made coming home every day worthwhile..and now the government wants to take this
away from me…“
“My American wife is bemused. All visas for non-EU citizens are stamped with a clear ‘no recourse to public funds’. So she doesn’t understand why the burden on taxpayer is even an issue for the British government.”
“ I want people to know I am not a statistic affected by these new rulings, I am a person whose life has been ripped apart; I can’t see how there is going to be a future for me while these rulings are in place. Time is running out for me, I acknowledge I am not a young man any more and this is my last chance of happiness. Why should it be cruelly snatched away from me?”
“My crime - I fell in love and exercised my right to do so.”
“I work, but don’t earn £18,600 and so am condemned to a life in a country where my physical and
mental health deteriorate”
“This used to be a great country but the government’s attitude to British people make us 2nd class citizens. Clearly, they want to force us out to make room for rich people and EU nationals“
“As a British student, I can’t live in my country with my wife, because she is American and I don’t earn £18,600 – how many British students do?!”
“The government is separating me from my wife and stepchildren, just because I don’t earn more than £24,800”
“As a British Masters student, I can’t live in my own country with my partner, because he is
Argentinean and I don’t earn £18,600 – how many British students do?! However, international
students coming to the UK from elsewhere in the world can live here with their partner and kids, without needing to earn £18,600. The UK is slamming the doors on its own people, just because we accidentally fall in love with someone from outside Europe’s borders”.
“Despite being in a genuine loving relationship, the government has forced me into becoming a single mother, juggling work, being a full-time mum and a wife. Family life is supposed to be a right, not a privilege..but it sure doesn’t feel like it!”
“I hope one day I can be with the woman I love, without that love having a price tag..”
“We want to raise our baby together, in a country where the culture and language are not going to
damage my career as I need to financially support my family.”
“Just when my son and I have found a wonderful man to give us the family life we so desire, UKBA persists in snatching away our chance at happiness..”
“In order to be with my husband I need to move to Tunisia or elsewhere in Europe..I don’t understand
why I can’t live in my home, with my husband..why must I be forced out just to live with the man I have married?!!”
“It’s a shame the UK government is blind to common sense and so averse to doing the right thing, in the interest of massaging some numbers.”