by Jamy Franzen
According to a survey by the Home Office last year, international students made up 50% of sham marriages. These students come in via a Student Tier 4 Visa but have one purpose: staying and settling in the UK.
I got in touch with Ellen (not her real name) from Germany. She did her masters in Economics in London. She was 24 when she met her short time boyfriend from Pakistan. She was asked to participate in a sham marriage but realised in time that it was illegal and who he really was.
“I was in love with him when he proposed to me. Not having seen my family and close friends for more then six months I felt lonely and thought our relationship was sincere. If I were in Germany this wouldn’t have happened”.
(click here for the full story)
Getting married for reasons besides love can be categorised as the following: a marriage of convenience, which means getting married for practical, financial or political reasons, or a marriage entered into not for love and mutual affection but in order to facilitate immigration. A sham marriage means a marriage takes place whilst the couple don’t know each other, at least one of them isn’t a EU or UK citizen and wants to avoid immigration rules. These marriages are similar and both considered illegal. However, Delene Alouane from Immigration Marriage Fraud UK (an organisation that is focused on supporting women who have been married whilst not knowing it was a sham marriage) states that “marriage through deception is not illegal yet, but we try to convince the government to revise the current law to make deception by marriage a crime”.
The reasons why these students are getting married vary and involve several myths. Their student visa can have expired and they want a different one; others think that by getting married they get access to loans, benefits or have the same rights as a UK student or they want to bring over their families. In all cases, it involves immigration law and the Home Office and the UK Border Agency are keen to limit the freedom for people who want to misuse the system and avoid immigration control.
Will it get him/her a passport? NO
According to the website gov.uk you won’t get a UK passport easily when you marry a UK citizen. First of all you will need to have British nationality or citizenship before you apply for a passport. However, before you apply you will have to meet certain requirements. The biggest are that you will lived in the UK for at least 5 years, being granted an indefinite leave to stay. Once you have British nationality, you can apply for a passport. In this case you would have to meet a lot of requirements, which include having lived for 3 years in the UK prior to making a request, be of good character and sound mind, passing an English language and life test and haven’t spent a certain amount of days outside UK for twelve months.
Will he/she be able to change visa? YES
After being married the international student is able to change their visa from a student to a spousal visa. But according to Hannah Camplin, a legal officer connected to the University of Westminster, there is a difference between getting married to a UK citizen and an EU citizen. With an UK citizen you can get a spousal visa more easily. However, before you can get such a visa the international person would have to go back to their home country for several months and come back on the spousal visa. This visa will be valid for 2.5 years, after which you would have to apply again for a spousal visa. But, being able to come back on the spousal visa is not guaranteed. After having the visa for five years you can apply for residency.If you marry a EU citizen you can apply for a spousal visa as well, however it may take up to 6 months to acquire it. This visa will be valid for five years, after which you can apply for permanent residency.
Will you get access to student loans? NOT EASILY
The Student Advice Service at the University of Westminster gave a rough outline of what marriage means in terms of getting a student loan. However, they stated that immigration rules and eligibility to student loans are very complicated and often based on individual cases. But for example, if an international student is married to a UK citizen, it will receive a spousal visa. However, this takes time and will not lead to automatically receiving Student Finance. Next to that, the international student must have lived in the UK (and not for educational purposes) for at least three years before they start the course.
The Home Office tries to control and prevent or detect sham marriages. Registry Offices ask a lot of questions to find out the legitimacy of the relationship and immigration teams can pay unexpected visits to the couple to make sure that they are indeed living together. But reports by registry offices are low, hence governmental agencies suspects that a large number of sham marriages are undetected.