JCWI needs your help! We are researching the current state of the UK's spouse visa rules, and specifically the way in which the Minimum Income Requirement is implemented. We are running a survey for practitioners – it can be found here, and shouldn't take more than around 10 minutes to complete.
The Minimum Income Requirement (the income threshold that British citizens and settled residents have to meet in order to sponsor a partner from outside the European Economic Area) continues to hit families hard. The policy, first implemented in 2012, has previously been challenged in the courts, with the Supreme Court finding in 2017 that the Home Office must make changes to the policy in order to avoid breaches of Article 8 and to protect the best interests of children.
From some of the cases that the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) has seen, it is not clear whether the changes recommended by the Supreme Court are having effect on the ground.
JCWI is keen to gather as much evidence as possible about practitioners' experience of working with clients who are applying under Appendix FM. In particular, we are considering how the Minimum Income Requirement impacts on groups with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010, and whether this is lawful.
All insights that practitioners are able to share based on their experience making these applications will be extremely valuable, and will help us determine what impact the changes mandated by the Supreme Court in 2017 have had on decision-making.