Journalist experience with Fiance Visa

[RickyR]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...overdraft.html

Award-winning journalist Nadene Ghouri's New Zealand-born husband owns a house in England, works here and pays taxes.
But as she plans a church blessing for their marriage, he is still on the other side of the world having been refused a British visa.
Here, she tells how hard-working, honest people are 'soft targets' for bizarre and misguided immigration rules while others play the system and get away with it. In just under three weeks I am supposed to be walking down the aisle for the church blessing I have always dreamed of.

The church is booked, the flowers have been chosen and my wedding dress is undergoing the final alterations. More than 150 friends and family will be attending.

BBC reporter Nadene Ghouri with husband Sam on their wedding day: The UK immigration authorities have refused to give him a British visa which means he will be unable to attend their blessing
There is only one thing missing: the groom. Due to the staggering incompetence of our immigration authorities, my New Zealand-born husband Sam has been refused a British visa.
Despite the fact that we are about as far from the profiles of benefit scroungers or economic migrants as it's possible to imagine, the entry clearance officer who made the decision disputes that my relationship with Sam is genuine and states that she's 'not satisfied' we can support ourselves without benefits.
As things stand, it looks likely that our church wedding will be cancelled.
I was born and brought up in Britain. For almost 20 years I've worked as a journalist for the BBC and The Mail on Sunday, among others, and I'm about to have my first book published. Sam grew up in New Zealand, but has already lived in Britain for five years, working as a producer for Sky News.
Sam and I both specialise in reporting global news. Indeed, we met in the Middle East while working for the international news network Al Jazeera English. We got married in New Zealand in February and recently bought a house in Hastings, East Sussex.
The plan was to renovate the house alongside our other work as codirectors of our UK-based media production company.
Immediately after our New Zealand wedding we applied for a new visa for Sam - with me, as the UK citizen, sponsoring him. We submitted evidence of our relationship in the form of bank statements, mortgage statements and our marriage certificate.
Aware that the process can take time, we made sure we left a clear four months between the two ceremonies. Sam stayed in New Zealand while his application was being processed and I flew home alone.
However, last week we were told in a letter from an official at the British High Commission that Sam has been refused entry to Britain. The long list of reasons includes the following supposition: 'Given your history of working overseas I am not satisfied you intend to live permanently with your spouse.'
Sam and I are foreign reporters - the very nature of our jobs take us to the world's hotspots and wars. I've just returned from a three-week stint in Afghanistan; this year alone we've travelled to nine countries between us.
Many professionals need to travel for work. What if I was an air stewardess or Sam worked on an oil rig? Does travelling to paid employment negate your right to a home and a relationship? Of course not.
It gets worse. 'I am not satisfied that you or your sponsor will be able to maintain you or any dependants adequately without recourse to public funds,' declared the immigration officer.

She said she'd reached her conclusion because my bank statements show an average overdraft of £1,000 to £2,000 each month. Sam's accounts also show a small overdraft.
But these overdrafts are authorised, and given that we've bought a house and paid for two weddings this year, it's hardly a great surprise that we are overdrawn. My bank manager is comfortable with the situation, so what's it got to do with the immigration official?
And since when was an overdraft a crime against citizenship? What it shows is that I have a bank account and access to credit.
But the implication is clear: according to this official, we're probably on the scrounge for benefits. This is strange since neither of us have ever claimed benefits. In fact, I've always felt very strongly that benefits are a last resort.
My father's family originate from Afghanistan but he grew up in Pakistan and moved to Britain in 1968, part of the first generation of Commonwealth immigrants who had a genuine connection to this country and were proud to be living here.
My mother is British with her roots in the Yorkshire working classes. I grew up with the firm belief that signing on the dole indicated failure. I am proud of the fact that I came from Yorkshire to London alone aged 17, found a job as a receptionist and worked my way up the ladder.
Sam can trace his Scottish ancestry back to the early Protestant settlers who left Scotland for New Zealand in the 18th Century. He first came to Britain with his exwife, a primary school teacher from New Zealand, in 2002. They both worked full time and paid tax.
When they divorced and Sam's previous visa expired, he followed the rules and left Britain voluntarily. How can this official have reached such a terribly wrong conclusion about us both? Given the fact she didn't even bother to interview me, it is perhaps not surprising her conclusions are so inaccurate.
She did, however, have a 45-minute telephone conversation with Sam. But even then she seems to have drawn a wildly incorrect picture. In the refusal letter she states that Sam told her that he does not own any property.
This is bizarre. For one thing, our Abbey National mortgage statement is listed as one of her received documents, along with my bank statement, which clearly shows a direct debit every month to 'Abbey, Mortgage'.
The same bank statement also shows £50,000 in savings (which we used as the deposit on our house) and more than £15,000 of earnings from journalism. It seems that the officer must have pored over the right-hand column showing my overdraft balance and ignored the one displaying income.
But what about our marriage certificate? Surely that is proof we're married? No, it's not. The copy given to us by the registrar on our wedding day is deemed 'not acceptable'. Nor it seems was the copy of my passport, certified by a court in New Zealand. It is beyond madness.
I love being British, I am proud of what my country represents - and as someone who is mixed race I can attest to the tolerance and decency of British people.
Yet in the past few weeks my belief in this country has been sorely tested. I can't help but feel that people who do everything by the book get penalised while others, who break laws or play the system, get what they want.
We have hired a lawyer to appeal against the decision, but we've been told it can take three to six months. In the meantime Sam won't be able to come home and our wedding will be ruined.

The lawyer has told me that we're not alone in our predicament. He says he has represented other 'soft targets', deserving people who have been turned down for arbitrary reasons.
At a dinner party last weekend I met a woman who is an artist. Her husband is American and a successful architect, yet they too have been forced to jump through bureaucratic hoops in order for her to sponsor his visa because her job is deemed a 'risk'.

Yet recent research by Migration Watch suggests that there are now as many as 1.1million illegal immigrants in the UK.
In some ways Sam and I are fortunate. We can afford to hire a lawyer to fight our corner, although paying an unexpected legal bill doesn't help our finances. And I've been especially heartened by the support we've received.

Many people, from our local MP to my bank manager and the estate agent who sold us our house, have written letters of support. Neighbours have even offered to organise petitions for us.
In my work I see many desperate people living in countries ravaged by war and poverty.

I recently wrote a story for this newspaper about people traffickers, those who profit from others' misery by charging tens of thousands of dollars to bring people to Britain illegally.

Many of those who were making the perilous journey wanted to come here not only because they think they will get financial support but also because they genuinely believe Britain is a decent and safe place to live. And it is.
But my experiences of being plunged into this nightmare of bureaucracy and incompetence makes me wonder just how decently this country treats its own citizens.
Soft targets we may be, but this is not what we deserve.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz0q2zCl95X

[pennybarry]

Unbelievable!
It might be the history of their workplace that makes the embassy suspicious.

[marlyn&kenny]

this is really sad story!!! sometimes, im thinking life is so unfair!!! God give us this land, the earth to live in but powerful people, (government) set a rule to be followed... we should have all the rights to live where we are please ... specially have the right to live with our love ones!!

Dear God, please help us!!! who are genuinely long to be with our husband, so we ca start our life together!! its been 2 weeks and still waiting, hoping and praying for positive result of our visa application.

[darren-b]

this is really sad story!!! sometimes, im thinking life is so unfair!!! God give us this land, the earth to live in but powerful people, (government) set a rule to be followed... we should have all the rights to live where we are please ... specially have the right to live with our love ones!!

Interesting thought, but unfortunately unless all countries are equal especially fiancially you'll get people trying to move to where they perceive they will have a better life. If we removed the border control at places like Dover and stopped trying to remove illegal workers just think how more of a mess this country would become (it is bad enough as it is).

The reporter made a bad mistake as regardless of what your income is, ECOs hate overdrafts. Though they don't mind loans or mortgages (or even credit cards if you don't tell them...).

[sparky]

as unfair as this case seems- if this lady brings it to the publics attention then it may help our own cases perhaps for those seeking spouse visas

every cloud and all that

[joebloggs]

last week we were told in a letter from an official at the British High Commission that Sam has been refused entry to Britain. The long list of reasons

well sending over drawn statements is never a good idea, and for journalists they didn't do much research on applying for a visa did they

agree with sparky, maybe some good will come from this, but i doubt it

[sars_notd_virus]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...overdraft.html

''She said she'd reached her conclusion because my bank statements show an average overdraft of £1,000 to £2,000 each month. Sam's accounts also show a small overdraft.
But these overdrafts are authorised, and given that we've bought a house and paid for two weddings this year, it's hardly a great surprise that we are overdrawn.''

Not a surprise to me....its actually a good news means the ECO is really working on standard procedures and being fair to all visa applicants.

[joebloggs]

Not a surprise to me....its actually a good news means the ECO is really working on standard procedures and being fair to all visa applicants.

true, fairness for all

it's not only what you earn that counts, its what you have left to support your spouse that matters...

not much good earning £100k a year if your spending it all and your are overdrawn every month

[Arthur Little]

... means the ECO is really working on standard procedures and being fair to all visa applicants.

That's certainly how it would APPEAR, Mari ... ! And with Joe's follow-up comments too!!

[mark99]

It seems like they didn't visit this excellent forum first hehe , if they had spent a little time doing research then they would know that to get a Visa takes more effort like everybody on this forum has had to endure. Somebody should email the author of that article .

[Arthur Little]

Somebody should email the author of that article .

... 'zat you volunteering, Mark?

[icecreamlady]

hello,

in fairness, i think you need to know what is the compelling reason why it was denied. if there is no compelling reason to refuse your visa, you must email the embassy and enquire . the last resort you could do, is to tell them that you will sell your own stories to newspaper or tell your stories to BBC. Im sure, they will be scared with that as there was also a british soldies whos children of her fiancee was denied. when he emailed them and told them that he was serious in telling his story to the newspaper, right then and there, the ECo Manager just reversed the decision and asked him to send back their passports.