The idea
I am a 71 year old indigenous citizen of the UK and an old age pensioner. I was widowed in 2002, and met and married a Russian widow in 2004 who was living in this country. I have a 27 year old stepson who has been receiving our financial support since we sent him back to Russia six years ago having been brought into the UK illegally by his elder brother when a 17 year old shortly after the death of their natural father.We have been trying to get the young man back to the UK to live with me and his mother as our dependant (and with NO resorting to welfare benefits) for the last three years trying to use the legal channels – i.e. visa applications etc.. It has all been a waste of time and cost a lot of money from my pensions!Attending immigration appeal tribunals is like being in a foreign country, with NO participant with any understanding of my own indigenous culture!
The Immigration rules as they are today were never meant by the legislature to break up the families of genuine indigenous citizens who marry foreigners and take on the family commitments associated with such a covenant. Their real reasons were to prevent mass colonisation of the UK by foreign families particularly from past 'Empire' states in Africa and Asia. However, in order to be 'just in a democratic society', the rules are applied to an indigenous citizen equally with no discrimination, despite the fact that the non-indigenous citizen does have a choice of domicile, usually another continent with definitely better weather! In all the New World countries, laws are passed which DO discriminate in favour of indigenous citizens where appropriate. Examples of this can be seen in the whole of the North and South American continents as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Presently I am living in another European state and I have residential status there. I have abandoned my fully paid up home – except, of course I must still pay the Council Tax etc.., and I have rented a small apartment. The reason for this is that in other parts of the EU they are not so strict with their immigration rules and DO have such things in their statutes as 'Family Visit' or 'Family Re-unification' visas which permit family members to visit without the Gestapo techniques and prejudices visited on us by the UK Home Office. I have even taken up my Irish nationality(my father being born there), as I feel so strongly against the UK after over six years of battling with the Home Office, firstly with my wife, who was deported 6 months after our marriage, and then trying to get our son back to live with us. My wife has jumped through all the new hoops and is now a naturalise UK citizen! She is 55.
The Immigration Laws need to recognise that an indigenous citizen marrying a foreigner has the right to live in peace in his own country with his, albeit new, family without interference by the state. This is, after all, an Article 8 of the ECHR directive, and is, sadly, broken continuously by the UK Home Office.
Why is it important?
The united family is the 'molecule' of the state, yet the Home Office goes out of its way to ensure that families like mine, where there are family members living in another country and being supported financially and emotionally, are kept apart.
I have been constructively deported once already when I accompanied my wife on her deportation journey. I consider that I have chosen to 'deport' myself now for a second time so that I can get my family united, albeit in another EU state. I am hoping to return to my home in the UK at some future date with my son, once I have complied with the EU rules for his residency with me, but this is not at all a certainty. The UK Home Office are known to have broken EU laws before and refused entrance to the UK to people who are entitled to enter – particularly family members.
I am really very fortunate that I have quite a good pension, having had only two real employers during the 43 years of my working life. If it were not for that it would have been impossible to do what I am now doing. I also pay a considerable amount of UK income tax on my pensions, which, if I chose to remain OUTSIDE of the UK in the future, I will be removing from the UK economy, together with the quarter of a million pounds or so I would hope to get from the sale of my property.