Unite Families - Fight For Love (UFFFL)
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Davids Story

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Post  goldaviator Tue Sep 18, 2012 1:55 am

Hi to all of you on this forum, my story is similar to many already posted on here. I am British born, in my mid-fifties and until recently self- employed in the graphics industry currently living in the east midlands. I have a fiancée who lives in Manila and we have been together for three years. Until recently I had been living in Manila for six months to get an informed opinion of what life would be like to live there should I decide to live there full time. In May of this year I returned back to the UK with my fiancée who came on a tourist visa to see if she liked the country here should we decide to make this our future home. During her month stay we travelled to London, Scotland and the Midlands to give her an idea of what life was like here before she had to fly back to her work in Manila.

With the current economic climate finding work has not been easy so we decided that I would seek employment working for an employer in the graphic art industry or retail management field here in the UK as that is what I have done for most of my life. I wrongly presumed I would find some work here and then apply for the fiancée visa. By June of this year my fiancée was back in Manila and I had started to make plans back here while supporting myself from my savings. In July with the new Family Migration ruling coming into play the bottom of my world fell apart especially when I learned that the minimum financial threshold was to be £18,600 and all my future plans were blown out of the water.
I wrote off to my MP explaining my situation and he was sympathetic at first and said he would write to Damian Green the then Immigration Minister. Having waited for more than six weeks I received a letter back from my MP with a letter from Mr.Green as well. The letter just stated the facts of which my MP knew I was aware of and the Minister stated much the same but just added I ‘might consider obtaining help with any application or advice regarding Immigration Rules and requirements from a qualified immigration adviser’. Very helpful I thought! So I wrote again to my MP stating how unhappy I was about just quoting back to me something I already knew. At the same time I wrote to Chris Bryant Shadow Immigration Minister regarding my situation, while being sympathetic he said he could do nothing and I should bring up the matter with my MP. After the summer recess I rang my MP’s local constituency office to make an appointment to see him, but when they learned what my appointment was regarding they said he could do nothing and to quote them ‘the rules are the rules’. I was incensed at being treated in this manner and fired off another letter to my MP. Two days later I received a letter in the post from him saying he understands my disappointment that I am unable to earn a salary of £18,600 within the constituency and was therefore sorry he could not provide any further assistance on this particular matter.

I do live in an area of the country where the average wage is nowhere the set criteria laid out in the new rulings. To date I find myself a 56 year old man still classed as self-employed, signed up with 27 job agencies spending hours each day on my laptop applying for vacancies while solely surviving on my savings to live off. I have worked hard all my life paid my taxes and insurance and still have to pay a NI bill every three months even though I have paid in more years than I need, to gain my pension. I could be bloody minded and change my self- employed status but I would fall foul of Employment Law because I would challenge their reasoning and say I could not accept a job that did not pay £18,600 because the government has new rulings that indicate that I must earn this salary to enable me to have a life with my future wife while living in the country I was born in.

All the stories on this forum have a human emotional element to each and every one of them, full of hurt, anguish and for some, total despair. Myself I hate being apart from the lady I love, I don’t need to elaborate on this we all share the same feeling inside of us for one reason or another, there has to be hope, there has to be justice. The one thing I do know is that it is destroying my life bit by bit with each passing day. Thanks for listening………………………………………

goldaviator

Posts : 1
Join date : 2012-09-04

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Post  Ros Payne Wed Sep 19, 2012 4:17 pm

Your story is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry for you as well as the rest of us.

Ros Payne

Posts : 12
Join date : 2012-09-05

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