Photograph: Jamie Grill/Getty Images/Tetra images RF
Re the new visa rules (Thanks to James Cleverly, I may never live in the same country as my kids again, 6 December), I’m a UK citizen who married my husband in Turkey last month. I am a new assistant manager at a hospice, earning £23,000 a year, and I have been saving for a spouse visa for my husband to join me in the UK. Now, the new £38,700 salary threshold for the visa has taken away my human right to a family life. It treats us worse than criminals. As per the rules, we don’t claim any benefits, I have a stable home and we would pay the NHS surcharge. We aren’t a burden, we contribute.
To tear legitimate spouses apart is immoral, discriminatory and disgusting. This has to be stopped. It is causing such extreme distress that many families will not survive this cruelty.
Roxanne Randel
Sutton, London
• The visa rules bombshell means my wife of two years, a Thai national, will no longer be able to come to live in the UK as I won’t be able to meet the new financial thresholds. What adds insult to injury is the fact that she was looking to work in the care sector.
This government has broken our lives and our futures. I can see no other option than to close my company and move abroad to be with my wife. It would also cost us at least £10,000 for her to be processed through immigration.
Peter Wardman
Llandybie, Carmarthenshire
• The new salary threshold is a disgrace. I am British, and recently married a Moroccan national. But now, my right to have my wife with me will be taken away. I feel this suggests that they want to control who you can fall in love with. It’s extremely hypocritical as some members of parliament are married to non-British nationals.
I have spoken to an immigration solicitor who has told me that it’s against human rights and is completely barbaric. How many families are they going to rip apart? This will force a lot of British nationals to leave the country to be with their spouses.
Lance Buck
Rochester, Kent
• My son, a UK citizen, is due to marry a woman from Ecuador in that country in August 2024. Arrangements for the wedding were well in hand before these new visa requirements. He earns £29,300, which is well short of the new £38,700 and well above the previous £18,600. This is causing extreme distress to my son and family, and we do not know what to do. This action by the Tories is disgraceful, and just desperation on their part.
My son has no mortgage and no loans outstanding, and lives rent-free in the annexe attached to our house. He has no problem supporting his future wife and there is no burden on the state.
Derek Shepherd
Sheringham, Norfolk
• My husband is British, I am French. I lived and worked in the UK for 28 years. It never occurred to me to apply for British nationality because we lived in the EU. In 2007, we decided to move to France for a few years. When the Brexit referendum happened, we did not know what to do, so we stayed put, hoping against hope that there would never be a hard Brexit.
My daughter is still in the UK. I know I will never be able to spend my old age near her, as my husband’s pension will never reach the minimum threshold to allow him to bring a spouse, although we live comfortably on our joint earnings and our home is mortgage-free. If my husband dies first, I will be left alone in France. I have some French family, but nowhere near where I live. It breaks my heart.
Véronique Wilcox
Saintes, France
• I have been married to my Italian husband for 51 years, and the increased threshold effectively puts me in exile, as my pension is not sufficient to have him live with me in the UK.
Georgina Phillips
Rome, Italy
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