There are fears that more people will be separated by the introduction of a minimum salary level for those wanting UK family visas.

Families living in the UK and abroad have raised concerns about what new rules will mean for them as they try to reunite with foreign spouses.

In December, the Home Office, which says migration to the UK is too high, announced a package of measures to reduce net migration, following a spike in arrival numbers.

As of 11 April this year, anyone applying for a visa to bring a loved one from overseas must earn at least £29,000 per year.

A family visa is required for a British citizen or settled resident wanting to bring a foreign partner or spouse, and potentially children, to live in the UK together.

The minimum income required to sponsor a foreign spouse coming to the UK via the Family Visa scheme has now increased from £18,600 to £29,000.

The Government plans to increase this further, in stages, to £38,700 by next spring.

The minimum income requirement applies to the spouse already living in the UK.

In 2020, the UK was placed second from bottom among 56 countries for ease of family reunion, ranking only above Denmark, according to the Migrant Integration Policy Index.

Caroline Coombs, who lives in Bristol, co-founded Reunite Families UK - a non-profit organisation supporting families navigating the visa process.

The group started on Facebook in 2017 and has grown to almost 4,500 members.

Ms Coombs` husband, who is from Ecuador, faced being deported to his home country shortly after the couple - already married at the time - welcomed their first child.

Eight years on, Caroline`s husband Carlos is still in the process of gaining indefinite leave to remain, which would secure his future in the UK.

Another family struggling to come to terms with the new rules are Gary Pepperd and `the love of [his] life`, Shayenne.

Mr Pepperd was living

in Bristol when he met Shayenne. She is Brazilian and was living in Brazil when they connected through social media.

`After a while, we started developing feelings until it got to a point where we wanted to be together,` said Mr Pepperd.

Shayenne came to the UK on a visitor visa and the couple`s relationship flourished. They got married in December 2017.

The pair had planned to live together in the city, but the option to apply for a family visa wasn`t available to them, as Mr Pepperd earned below the previous minimum income requirement of £18,600.

As a result, Mr Pepperd said he decided to move to Brazil so the couple could be together.

`I still have a house in Bristol that I would love to live in with my wife,` he said.

`But the [visa] application process is very expensive and it would mean being separated for a long time.

`I would need to leave my wife, find a job there, collect six months of payslips before I`d be allowed to apply and potentially wait another six months to get an answer.

`Now, it just got even harder,` he added.
Migration `too high`

As highlighted in a recent BBC Panorama episode `Immigration - the UK`s Record High`, last year, the Government issued 1.44 million visas. Only around 5.6% of those were family-related.

In response, a Home Office spokesperson said in a statement: `The current levels of migration to the UK are far too high.

`That is why the government announced a plan to cut the number of migrants coming to the UK by 300,000 a year �` the largest reduction ever.

“By tethering the minimum income requirement to the general salary threshold for skilled workers, it ensures migration policy is supportive of the wider ambition for the UK to be a high-wage, high-productivity, high-skill economy.” V.5318

I recently renewed my passport at Home Affairs in a bank branch and was very impressed with the service and quick turnaround time. The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) and major banks first launched the option to do Smart ID card and passport applications via select bank branches in 2016. It has slowly grown to around 30 locations, including branches from Absa, Discovery Bank, FNB, Investec, Nedbank, and Standard Bank. My passport was set to expire in October 2024, and because many countries require that your passport be valid for six months from a travel date, a renewal was due. V.5324
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DA MP says this is up 20 000 from the 74 000 six months previously Department of Home Affairs visa backlog is up by 20 000 in 6 months The Democratic Alliance (DA) can reveal that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) Visa backlog has increased from 74 000 in August 2023 to 92 000 as of 16 February 2024. This is an increase of just under 20 000 in about 6 months. Download the Parliamentary question and answer here. The increase goes against what the Minister told the Home Affairs Parliamentary Committee in March 2023. V.5325
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The European Union (EU) will limit visas for people from Ethiopia. This is because the Ethiopian government hasn`t been helping take back citizens who stay in the EU illegally. The EU Council announced this in a statement on Monday. Ethiopians won`t get visas for multiple entries anymore. Also, Ethiopians with diplomatic and service passports won`t have their visa fees waived. V.5326
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CRIMINAL convictions more than two decades ago came to haunt a man who was offered a job as a senior data discovery and enrichment expert, but after his prospective employer got wind of the convictions, retracted the job offer. But the Gqeberha Labour Court came to his rescue and found that the man should be given a second chance, given that his convictions occurred 20 years ago and had meanwhile been expunged. V.5327
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Nigeria’s economy, which ranked as Africa’s largest in 2022, is set to slip to fourth place this year and Egypt, which held the top position in 2023, is projected to fall to second behind South Africa after a series of currency devaluations, International Monetary Fund forecasts show. The IMF’s World Economic Outlook estimates Nigeria’s gross domestic product at $253 billion based on current prices this year, lagging energy-rich Algeria at $267 billion, Egypt at $348 billion and South Africa at $373 billion. V.5328
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An Ethiopian asylum seeker, who does not speak English, claims he was duped by a senior immigration official into paying an admission of guilt fine when he thought he was paying for bail.Two Western Cape High Court judges have condemned the official`s `deplorable` behaviour, set aside the fine, and ordered the immigration official be taken off the case. Tsegaye Esyas claims Annelise van Dyk treated him like an animal which led to him attempt suicide while in police cells. V.5320
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EREMY MAGGS: I want to stay with crime now. Individuals with a criminal record may be faced with significant challenges when seeking employment, I think that’s a given. Here in South Africa, employers may legally exclude an applicant from consideration for a position if having a clean criminal record is what is termed an inherent requirement of the job. That phrase, inherent requirement, is important, but what exactly does that mean, and when can an applicant be lawfully excluded for having a criminal record? V.5321
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As a South African who has adopted a nomadic work lifestyle alongside my wife, Ingrid Lotze, I’ve been an interested observer of South Africa’s snail-pace digital nomad visa (DNV) development process. Despite the optimism surrounding its introduction, the visa seems to miss several crucial marks for digital nomads like us. V.5322
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DA MP says hours lost continue to result in persons being unable to collect their ID documents due to unmanageable queues The DA has been inundated with complaints that the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) systems are offline, resulting in long queues and delayed processing of documents. Through questions posed to the Minister, the DA can now reveal that the DHA has lost over 77 years’ worth of working hours due to system downtime and load-shedding from 2019 to date. Concerningly, this data only relates to hours lost for the application of smart IDs, meaning decades more of working hours could have been additionally lost in other spheres such as passport or visa applications. V.5314
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Home Affairs’ seemingly endless court battles set the department back more than R110-million between April 2023 and the end of February this year. This was revealed in a written parliamentary response by minister Aaron Motsoaledi. He said the department accumulated a litigation bill of R117 692 996.3, higher than the R72 637 944.51 spent the year before. V.5315
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