New UK immigration law is a marriage-breaker

For viewers who tuned into Newsnight on BBC 1 this week (July 24), you’ll have seen the shocking story about the teenage wife who faces deportation from the UK due to a new UK immigration law.

New immigration rule states that only women over 21 years old can apply for a UK visa after a marriage. The legal age was raised from 18 years. The ruling is part of the Forced Marriages Act, aimed at tackling the issue of abuse within forced marriages.

19-year old Rochelle from Canada married her Welsh husband Adam Wallis in November 2008.

They met two years previous out in Canada.The couple kept in touch via the web after Adam returned to the UK and in March 2008, Rochelle came to visit Adam on a six month UK visa. During their time together n the UK, the couple fell in love and decided to get married. They agreed to make Rochelle’s move to the UK permanent.

To get Rochelle permanent residency visa, they applied to the Home Office for permission to marry. But paperwork was lost in the visa application process at the Home Office’s end.

The outcome was that Rochelle’s application was delayed. This delay also meant that Rochelle had one week left on her UK visa before she would have to return to Canada. The couple had to either rush a wedding before Rochelle’s visa expired or the bride-to-be would have to return home and apply for a spousal visa and then return to the UK.

The couple opted for a quick wedding. But four days after they wed, the new UK immigration law was put in place. The law states that no forced marriages are allowed to take place unless the women marrying is 21 years old or over.

Rochelle now faced the perplexing prospect of having by law to return to Canada and wait an agonising two years until she turned 21.

The UK law was put in place to protect young women, particularly Asians, from being forced to comply with arranged marriages.

The UK Border Agency, responsible for enforcing the new law, described Rochelle’s case as an “inconvenience”.

Rochelle’s was justifiably shocked by the government agency’s seeming lack of care. “It’s more than an inconvenience, he’s ripping my marriage apart – he’s taking the only thing I have and throwing it away,” she said on the BBC’s website.

Rochelle and Adam turned to their local Aberystwyth MP, Mark Williams for help.

Williams was quick to support the couple and said: “I think it is a horrific case – government policy that starts out with good intentions, but a blanket approach that nets in the most innocent of people.”

For now, unlucky Rochelle has fallen foul of the new law and is set to be deported. Let’s hope the publicity from the BBC can save her fate and her marriage.

Laws to prevent forced marriages came into practice in 2007 in an attempt to stop forced marriages and protect anyone who has already fallen victim to such an arrangement.

It covers citizens within England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Anyone trying to force someone into marriage could face a jail sentence of up to two years.