The Minimum Income Requirement (MIR) is a financial threshold British citizens must meet to sponsor a family member, like a partner or child, to join them in the UK.
This amount was set to increase even further – from £29,000 to around £38,700 per year – but these plans were put on hold after Labour’s general election victory.
The MAC’s long-awaited review, published on Tuesday, found that the £29,000 threshold is “high compared to other high-income countries, with those placing greater weight on family life relative to economic wellbeing”.
This has left families in limbo, with some fearing they might have to leave the country to be with their partners if the MIR increases.
Mr Edbrooke, a magazine designer who also runs a travel channel on YouTube, met his wife in Vietnam, where he lived for around 30 years before moving to the UK. The pair have been married for nearly 20 years.
Mr Edbrooke said his wife applied for a visa through the “10-year route to settlement”, requiring the family to pay fees totalling over £19,000, including the cost of the initial application, an immigration health surcharge and extensions of the visa.
Ms Edbrooke cannot work due to restrictions stemming from her settlement status“It’s ridiculous that’s how much we have to pay so I could be with my wife of 19 years,” he said. “It’s just a struggle and it’s not fair.
Mr Edbrooke said a rise in the financial requirements for spouse visas could force the family to move back to Vietnam.
“That’s all because I am married to a foreigner.”
‘Visa rules prevent us from working’
“She is in demand from the NHS. They are short of child caregivers,” he said. “But she still can’t get that job because of the spouse visa and the limitations of it.
Jason Unsworth, 36, told The i Paper that his wife, Sasithon Hongchompoo-Unsworth, who is from Thailand, worked as a housekeeper, but when her first spouse visa expired, she lost her job as she awaited her second one.
Jason Unsworth and his daughters. His wife Sasithon Hongchompoo-Unsworth is awaiting for a new visa“She got the job about a month before her visa expired,” Mr Unsworth said. “She had to stop working and is losing out financially.
Naeem Ali, 38, said his “life was ripped to shreds” when the previous government raised the MIR, as it meant he could not afford to sponsor a visa for his wife, who is from the Philippines.
Mr Ali, who works as an office administrator in Birmingham, told The i Paper he suffers from a range of health conditions, including ulcerative colitis, pulmonary embolism, heart strain and deep vein thrombosis.
The Immigration White Paper, released last month, introduced stricter rules on the qualifications people need to get a skilled worker visa, an end to overseas recruitment for social care work and obligatory English language tests for students and workers arriving in the UK.
The MAC’s review warned that increasing the MIR to £38,700 per year could conflict with international law, including Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to family life.
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Read MoreThe spokesperson added that the “Government has already committed to legislate to clarify the application of Article 8 of the ECHR for applicants, caseworkers and the courts”.
She added that research conducted by Reunite Families, which will be presented in Parliament later this month, shows that the MIR has “caused untold damages to those whose only ‘fault’ has been to fall in love with someone born abroad, and more particularly the horrendous impact on the children who are the biggest victims of these rules.
Ms Coombs called on the Home Secretary to “have the political courage to change a system that has been hidden in plain sight, destroying the lives of British and settled residents and their children for over a decade”.
The Home Office has been contacted for further comment.
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