Help Me Come Home

On March 17, 2020 we were married. On March 27, 2020 we were separated by Home Office policy. Last month our application for a spouse visa was rejected on financial grounds. Please help us be together again. We just want to be together as husband and wife, but this is a dream beyond reach for us.

 

 

If you were to ask anyone who knows us, they'd tell you that there was never a couple more suited to each other than Samantha and Simon, and yet more unexpected. When we met, I was a 22 year old international university student and he was a 44 year old bachelor who'd given up on relationships. Over the next year and a half, we developed a close friendship and were there for each other during some very dark times in both our lives. To most of our friends, we seemed like very different people. I was the serious, mature and intellectual one, and he was a laugh, a sarcastic, snarky, edgy laugh. But we share so much more than we differ. We share personal values, empathy for others, and intellectual interests. We share fundmental respect and consideration for each other. We share more simple interests, as well; our first date was a trip to see Infinity War at the cinema, we we almost religiously see new MCU movies in cinemas. Having suffered quite a lot in our love lives, we were happy to find so much peace and comfort and understanding in our relationship together. Each of us made the other feel appreciated, respected and loved, and having the other around made our lives better in every way. We shared the burdens and the joys, and he gleefully cheered me on as I achieved my bachelor's and master's degrees with distinction.

 

I arrived in the UK back in 2015 as an undergraduate student, and furthered my studies to the post-graduate level, which I completed in late 2019. I held several part-time jobs whilst completeing my studies, but my income was manily subsidised by US student loans. I had left behind my family and everything I knew to live in the UK and over five years I built a life for myself. I had friends, a home, and I supported myself. When I needed somewhere to live, I found it. When I needed to move, I lugged my belongings across London on the bus. I dedicated myself to my studies completely, and I achieved marks most home students do not.

 

A working-class man, Simon was never able to go to university, though not for lack of ability or interest, but for financial reasons. He needed to help support his single mother and could not afford to not be working. This, combined with significant wage stagnation in the last few decades, has meant that he has not been earning what he might have been if he were able to go to university as a young man. Despite this, he is a skilled and hardworking man, who has been employed and thrived in many different fields. He is currently a customer service represenative, and enjoys assisting people, particularly those most in need.

 

Our wedding day was the happiest in Simon's life, and it should have been mine as well, but the cloud of separation hung over me to the extent that I couldn't stop thinking about it. I had only ten days to be with my husband before I'd need to return to my home country, the USA, as my student visa was about to expire. My husband did not earn enough to be the sponsor of my spouse visa, and so he found a new job. But Home Office policy requires six months of payslips from your current employer in order to qualify to sponsor a spouse. Which meant that I'd need to stay in the USA for at least five months before we could apply. I panicked that something would go wrong and that it could be much longer than we thought, but my husband was certain it would be sorted out quickly.

 

He was wrong.

 

Most people who marry go on a honeymoon, to spend time together. But for us, it was the exact opposite. For the next five months, the pandemic ravaged nations and it ravaged the economy, too. And when we were ready to apply for our spouse visa, two things went wrong. Firstly, immigration offices were closed due to the pandemic, meaning I could not go in to get my Biometrics (fingerprints/ID photos) done for the application. Secondly, all new employees at my husband's job were laid off, as the Covid-19 Recession hit company revenue. Even if my husband had found a job that same day, we'd be back to square one. It would be at least another six months before we could apply again, and several more months for an answer. And it took much more than a day for him to find new work.

 

We spent our first anniversary on different continents, as well as both of our birthdays, and will likely also spend our second anniversary apart this coming year.

 

When my husband found a new job, and six months had passed, our lawyer advised us to wait two months before applying, as the pandemic had created an immigration backlog, and he assured us that if we waited we'd recieve our answer very quickly. He was positive that our case was good and, what with my educational background and roots in the UK, and our savings, we'd be guaranteed to be given the visa. You see, both of us had sadly lost a grandparent in the past year (not related to Covid-19). The silver lining to our losses was the asurance that the money they had left us would enable us to start our married life together in some security. Our lawyer assured us that our savings, and my income potential, would compensate for the fact that my husband was earning £3 a week less than the income requirement set by the Home Office.

 

However, the "two months" advised to us by our lawyer became three, and then four. Our lawyer didn't turn in the application until mid-August, almost a year after my husband had first been laid off. And the quick "two-week" answer we were promised was also not to be. We recieved our answer in October, and depsite all assurances, the application was rejected.

 

The Home Office determined that our marriage and relationship was completely genuine and valid; there was no notion at all of this marraige being fraudulent. We clearly truly love each other and want to be together. We were rejected because my husband earns £3 a week less than they say he should, and that my personal savings and potential income do not matter because he is the sponsor of the visa. In other words, we were rejected on any reason the Home Office could find to reject any applications, because they want to bring their net migration numbers down for political brownie points. My marriage is being sacrificed on the alter of Hostile Environment.

 

We have two options: the first is to appeal the Home Office decision in court. In order to do that, we need to have at least £10,000 for various costs and to bolster our savings to prove that my husband can in fact support us.Most of this money is needed to prove my husband can suport us, as we've had to spend chunks of our savings on expenses, and plane tickets to see each other three times over the past year and a half, including a recent visit we really could not afford but Simon made in the hopes of staving off my increasingly vivid suicidal ideation. The rest of this money will be needed for a barrister, for the courts directly, and for other legal costs.

 

The second option, is to start a completely new visa application, which will cost approximately £5,000, including lawyer fees. We will also still need to prove that my husband can support us both, in such a case. Any extra money would potentially go towards plane tickets so that one of us might be able to visit the other for our anniversary, and put towards us getting our own place, which we also don't have.

 

Ideally I will be able to find work soon, but my mental health is so poorly that I'm currently barely able to sleep, eat, or sit with my own thoughts without planning my own suicide. I also don't have a car with which to travel to interviews or a potential job, and this has prevented me from securing positions that I've applied for. My mother is currently trying to assist me in getting Medical (California State Healthcare for low-income individuals) so that I can go to therapy.

I've lost my entire life because of the Home Office. I followed their rules, I never broke any immigration laws in the five years I lived in the UK. When they granted me a student visa, I went to every single class (unless illness or accident prevented me), I never worked more than I was legally permitted, I paid income taxes, and I took care of myself. And in return they stole from me my home, my family, my friends, and my sanity. I was never someone who struggled with depression before, and any suicidal thoughts I'd had were temporary and fleeting. But now it's every day, every moment I'm alone with my thoughts. Having lost everything I had, and being thrown back into the life I specifically and intentionally left behind six years ago, I'm struggling to find anything to hang onto, and struggling to find a reason to keep living when every day I become more and more convinced that I will never be able to come home. Because I've become convinced that, to the world, people like me (immigrants) just don't matter and our suffering is acceptable.

 

All I want, all I'm asking for, so to be able to live in my own home with my spouse like everyone else gets to do. But someone decided that people who are too "poor" should not be allowed to do this. And this is why this is a dream, a far-fetched dream, for me.

 

Over the last six years, there have been many different people who have helped me and my husband. We couldn't afford to have a wedding reception, so our friends paid for some space in a pub and baked us a wedding cake. When I needed to move house, there were friends to help me so I didn't have to carry ALL my stuff across the city alone. I really do believe that most people are kind and want to help each other, and I've been saved by their kindness and generosity through many dark times in my life. I like to think I've treated others with the same kidness and generosity when I was able to. So, what I'm asking for, begging for, is some of that goodness in humanity so that I can have my family back. Sometimes I feel like my husband and I just don't matter to anyone, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe someone does. And that hope is why I'm here.

 

So, if you can, please help us. Thank you.