'Utterly devastated': Government immigration plans tearing UK families apart
"Anybody should have the right to fall in love with who they choose," Polly says.
Plans to more than double the salary a British citizen needs to earn in order to bring a foreign partner to the UK are tearing families apart.
Under new rules announced by Home Secretary James Cleverly this week, the threshold for sponsoring a family visa is set to rise from £18,600 to £38,700 in a bid to cut immigration.
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The prospect of such an increase - to a figure well above the national median average salary of £34,963 - has left affected families "utterly devastated".
Polly and Saroch
A mother of two young children, Polly Deechuson, 31, and her husband Saroch are one of the many couples whose lives have been plunged into uncertainty this week.
She told Sky News she had just moved back to Manchester with their children after the pair met in Thailand and lived there for eight years.
Saroch is currently in the UK on a visitor visa but will have to leave in the coming weeks.
The plan was for him to apply for a family visa once Polly was settled and earning the required £18,600 salary - but now everything is up in the air.
"We don't know what to do at this point. Either we separate our family or we have no choice but to leave the UK again", Polly added.
"It's very hard to find a job when you have two young kids."
Tearfully, she explained how Saroch had told her he just wants his family to be happy and to have a good life - even if that meant them being separated.
"It shouldn't be the government choosing that for me and my family," Polly said.
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Polly argues that raising the salary threshold in such a way is a breach of the human right to a family life.
She also pointed out that if Saroch is unable to come to the UK then she would essentially be a single mother-of-two and thus more likely to need to claim benefits, whereas if Saroch was able to settle in Britain he would be able to work and pay tax.
Jessica and Sanas
"We're going to have to work extra hours, my husband already works 48 hours a week," says Jessica Mason.
She and her husband Sanas moved back to the UK from Sri Lanka after economic issues led to a turbulent national situation in the South Asian nation.
Jessica, 36, says she and Sanas easily meet the current £18,600 threshold but the jump to £38,700 will be a "massive, massive challenge".
"It's not even a reasonable amount," she tells Sky News. "So many families survive on even less than that."
"We are being penalised, we are scapegoats for a bigger problem."
Asked what would happen if the threshold does rise and they are unable to earn the required amount, she said that there was no way they would be separated.
"Why don't they just leave us alone? We are paying taxes, we are paying National Insurance. Why don't they just let us live our lives?"
Sean and Nicole
British armed forces veteran Sean Scott, 45, met his wife Nicole when the pair were working for Qatar Airways in the Middle East.
It was love at first sight, he told Sky News, but visa rules prevented Nicole from moving to the UK immediately, and the COVID-19 pandemic made international travel impossible, meaning they had to spend a year living apart.
Now married and living in Scotland, Sean and Nicole nevertheless are worried about what the new rules could mean for them, given that Nicole's visa will need renewing before she can apply for citizenship.
"People who want to work and contribute to the UK are being penalised by something that suddenly overnight has crept up."
Nicole, 35, says she is trying to stay positive but said: "There's a lot of cases just like us that don't know what they are going to do.
"We are just starting here in the UK together. We waited for years," she added.
Government 'ignore the sufferings the policy has already caused'
Caroline Coombs is chief executive of Reunite Families UK, a not-for-profit organisation supporting families navigating the UK spouse visa process.
She says their community of couples and families have been badly affected by the government plans.
"The government repeatedly ignore the sufferings that the policy has already caused at its current threshold and which continues to cause countless unnecessary damage to British citizens and their families across the country," Caroline added.
"The emotions are strong within the community but this has galvanised people into action. Threatening your family life will do that to a person.
"We will use this energy to supercharge this fight for a better and more humane immigration system."
