to think it's unfair we have to pay a £500 surcharge for the NHS

[alaskanbaby]

My DH (let's call him Mr. Alaska) and I both work full time, and pay income tax like everyone else, which goes towards our use of the NHS like everyone else. We've just found out that we need to fork out a £500 surcharge for his use of the NHS as part of his extension of his immigration visa (for being my husband of 5 years, and father of our 18 month old DD - both she and I are British, though I guess she's sponging off the NHS quite a bit). Am I being unreasonable to think it's unfair that my DH has to pay twice?

And by the way, the immigration hell was one of the reasons we ended up leaving the UK. It didn't make it impossible to live there, but pretty much insufferable.

TheChandler he cannot be paid more highly than British engineers. He could only do that if he had no ties to the UK. He has a British wife, British children and British residency visa so he doesn't meet the requirements. He worked in Norway and Ireland and in both cases he did get everything included in his pay. For the record there is only one British engineer in his very select field and as I mentioned earlier he lives in France. As far as I am aware the job in the UK is currently being done by Indian, Korean and a couple of European Engineers, not a single Brit anyway.

The difference between your story and others is that you are talking about you AND your DH, the other stories are talking about one person moving to the country that the other partner is a citizen of. No it's not cheap, we spent so much on moving our family to Brazil that we could have bought a house! My friend in the above example had her DH living in the UK, he was working. He had a temporary resident visa. By the time it came up for him to renew and get a permanant one their circumstances had changed. He was working in the city with a good job. He asked immigration and his boss if his employer could sponser him, that was declined or it had to be done from his country or some suchness I don't really remember the details of but it was not permitted. His wife was earning under 18,000 and her brother (who originally sponsered him) was out of work. So they said he had to "go home", having a pregnant British wife was irrelevant.

lushilaoshi the wrong people are the easy targets though aren't they? They can be tracked and in the statistics the details of who are irrelevant. That may be a very cinical view to take but I have been punished by my government for falling in love with a foreigner, so I don't really have a nice opinion of British immigration or their motives.

And by the way, the immigration hell was one of the reasons we ended up leaving the UK. It didn't make it impossible to live there, but pretty much insufferable. I could have written that. The peace and ease of me getting the paperwork to live and work in my husbands country actually made me cry and it was then I realised what a total stress we had been through previously.

Forriners pay more tax and use the NHS less on average than British born.

A decent chunk of the children born to overseas parents are forces, diplomatic and British expat families

All those who bash immigrants seem very happy to make use of the hard work of immigrants in this country.
Hypocrites.

But do the posters on here realise how difficult and expensive it is for a non-EU spouse of a British citizen to move to the UK?

Obviously not since it defies reason. I think that for the average brit the average immigrant is someone who just wants to get in to steal benefits, not someone who wants to make a life, integrate and contribute. And if irl you point it out the response tends to be "no i didnt mean immigrants like you, obviously you should be fine, right?"

Honestly, tomato, the stress was terrible. It almost broke our marriage. He came over before we married on a tourist visa (150 quid) to make sure he still wanted to come etc, stayed six months and obviously couldn't work or anything (fair enough). Then he went back to his country and spent four months (and about 700 quid) on his fiance visa application, English test, biometrics etc., finally got that and came over and we got married. We then applied for a spousal visa (another 700 quid) and waited SEVEN MONTHS without hearing ANYTHING from UKBA before it was granted. During that time he was stuck on the terms of his fiance visa so couldn't work and also his passport was with the UKBA, so he couldn't travel even though his mother was ill at the time and he needed to visit her. By this time he hadn't been able to work in the UK or in his home country (given he was trying to leave it) for a year and a half. When the visa came through, I was sent on a secondment abroad where he was granted a visa almost immediately!

When we came back from abroad we realised he had been granted the wrong kind of visa so had to wait ANOTHER seven months while UKBA sorted that out. Then we had to pay more than 1000 pounds for an extension to that visa, plus 150 for yet another English test (because presumably he'd forgotten all his English from a year and a half before.) He now has a year and a half left to run on his current visa before he can apply for ILR (another 1500 I think, plus UK citizenship test). And then he has to wait again before he can apply for a passport (which is I don't even know how much).

And each time, we had to wade through all the immigration rules (I'm a lawyer and even I found them impossible to understand), gather all the required documents (including personal emails and photos 'proving' we were a real couple), try and get responses to our queries (see below), wait up until 2am several nights so we could get an appointment at the immigration centre before they were all booked up, and then go along and be treated like a pair of criminals and justify our marriage before a bunch of box ticking bureaucrats.

The absolute worst time was during that seven month wait for the spousal visa though. We had no idea what was going on, every time we called we got a maze of telephone redirections which ended in a message telling us to refer to the UKBA website. If you did get through, you got someone on the other end telling you to, guess what? refer to the website. I had to get my MP and the press involved to get any information at all about the progress of our application. And all that time I was the sole earner on a not particularly high salary in London, but living in a one bed flat we could ill afford rather than a flatshare because we were terrified the UKBA would think it looked like a sham if a married couple were living with other people (they had that whole accommodation survey thing - oh yeah, another 180 quid).

It was awful. So fucking glad we left.

And to anyone who claims that the visa fees are justified as they cover the UKBA's costs (not that anyone is on this thread, but I've heard it), one of my fellow sufferers put in a freedom of information request to the UKBA asking what the cost of processing an application was relative to the fee. Turns out the profit rate on the spousal visa application fee is something like 450%. Quite a tidy business they've got going there.

So no, yet another 500 quid for expats who pay tax and who've already paid through the nose is not at all justified. It's arbitrary and completely politically motivated.

Oh, and did I mention that if we had a kid in the UK and then I died before my husband could get a British passport (not that he can, actually, as his country does not allow dual nationality), my husband would be allowed to stay in the UK and look after the kid, but would not be entitled to any benefits or support at all. Nowt. That's fucked up.

Urgh. Sorry for the rant. This thread brings back horrible memories.

I'd lived her 40 years by the time I became British.
The process cost me over £2000 even though I'd been paying tax here for over 20 years

Nolim I have heard those very words. My DH is fine now, he is one of the lucky ones in that he actually has indefinite leave to remain in the UK, we both chose to leave indefinitly though. Not everyone has that choice and marrying a UK citizen does not automatically mean you can live a normal married life in your country. Yes it is a human rights issue as someone upthread said. In fact when our friend went to France he was advised to say, I want to exercise my Eurpean right to live with my wife and child. Or something like that. I was informed that people can do that by a UK customs officer. Says it all doesn't it?

lushilaoshi just out of interest is your husband from a developing country? My husband has a theory that the UKBA discriminate between countries. He once got angry and said to a customs officer "Do you actually know anything about my country? If I was Australian I bet you won't be treating me like this". Having seen and heard a lot of stories it seems very much like some immigrants get a rougher deal than others.

tomato, he is from China. But having spoken to a number of people going through the same experience at the time, we didn't get the impression that what country you came from made much of a difference. There were Americans, kiwis, Australians, all having the same issues.

I don't know if that's much of a consolation though is it! And the OPs husband is American. You certainly went through a lot of hoops. We probably didn't only because we were married for 2 years and a child before we even came to the UK. It turns out that my DH should have been given leave to remain indefinitly the very first time he applied. There was actually a post it note on his application when his visa came back, it said "Should he get ILR as the couple has a child?" and one back saying "No give him two years"....not sure why other than they wanted to make us pay twice. Unfortunatly the nature of his work meant that he was offered a great opportunity in the USA. So when he applied for IRL his old temp one had expired and his application was turned down and I quote directly from the UKBA "If the couple is genuine (we had two children and one on the way by this point) they can live as a couple in another country, which they have been doing for the past three years. In other words "Sorry Brit, you can't come home and be a family, piss off somewhere else if you want to do that"

I'm from the UK but living in Sweden. Can people like us paying no uk tax still get free nhs treatment then?
Seems quite unfair tbh.

You would get treatment under the reciprocal treatment agreement. During the swine flu outbreak someone was flown to Sweden for treatment.

Some health is quite interconnected within the EU, if you need a donor organ you can receive one from almost anywhere in the EU.

And some treatment can be planned eg people on kidney machines can go on holiday within the EU and receive treatment in Spain or wherever, and other EU citizens can do the same here.

one of my fellow sufferers put in a freedom of information request to the UKBA asking what the cost of processing an application was relative to the fee. Turns out the profit rate on the spousal visa application fee is something like 450%. Quite a tidy business they've got going there.

I think that is missing the point. UKBA or whatever it is called these days does more than process the applications from law abiding foreign spouses, every lorry checked in Calais and every immigration point at ports/airports is manned by UKBA.

Again, no it is not fair that OP's spouse is paying for this but it has to be paid for somehow.

If you're a student or on a lower income you can't bring your spouse or kids over AT ALL. That has got to be a human rights issue.

Unless that has changed very recently then students can bring a spouse and children in, I studied alongside a few international students who had several children they brought in to the UK.

sashh why should I bloody pay for the Calais border checks through visa fees for my husband? What the hell has Calais got to do with him? Anyway, that's what I (was) already paying through the nose for in bloody taxes!

And nope, you can only bring your spouse or kids to the UK if you earn more than 18,600 (or are on DLA). No exceptions.

And bringing your sick or elderly parents over to live with you? Forget it. It's not allowed.

Sashh you are talking about international students bringing their families(they have to prove they have enouhg savings i think), not uk students with non eu spouses. Its a different group of ppl with different requirements.

Actually, I lie. You CAN bring your spouse over if you earn less than 18,600, but you need to have at least 60,000 cash in the bank. Easy then.

The ultimate scam here is that the British government is screwing over it's own citizens. if you are a non-EU spouse coming to Britain with an non-british EU spouse, it's a piece of cake. Everything is then done through the EU. Strict time limits on holding your passports, making decisions, etc.

And it's FREE.

Crazy.

I know keepit. It makes me soooo angry.

Bye bye Britain, good bloody riddance.

Yep, it's the utter unfairness of that which makes my blood boil.

lushilaoshi actually we had the savings but allowed the two year leave to remain expire, so we were told we could get permanant leave to remain even with the appropriate funds. We had to leave the UK and appeal. Pulling children out of school in term time and paying fines for that little gem as well.

It's a total mess of a system designed by the devil himself (if there was one). Good bloody riddance indeed.

Goodness, reading some of these stories makes me realise our ordeal wasn't quite as bad (though being separated by 10,000 miles for three months just after getting married wasn't much fun) . However I got in under the old spouse rules so ILR in 2 years, the new rules are beyond draconian.

Bye bye Britain, good bloody riddance.

it's not only britain. Other european countries do that same. They reserve the right to treat their own citizens like crap, but the EU handles the others.

it's classic governments shitting on a certain unpopular segment of the population because they can.