This just in.
The Home Affairs Committee has this morning published its report on the work of the Immigration Directorates, which looks at sham marriages in the UK and the apparent increase in this industry to secure immigration rights.
The report suggests that the problem is now a large-scale one and one which needs greater powers to tackle. The Committee explains that sham marriages provide UK residence rights not to one person, but to other family members as well.
The Home Affairs Committee make several recommendations, including:
- A change in the law so that if the Home Office enforcement team do not act on a section 24 report from the Registrar and the Registrar is confident the wedding is a sham, then the Registrar should have the power to cancel the wedding.
- Allowing The Home Office to provide training on how to identify potential shams and to provide full, accurate and timely information to the Registrars to tell them what action is being taken as a result of their reports.
In a statement on Parliament’s website, Keith Vaz MP, Chairman of the Commitee says:
“There is an industry of deceit in the UK which uses sham marriages to circumvent immigration control. Marriage is a precious institution and should not be hijacked to make a mockery of the law or our immigration system.
The estimated 10,000 sham marriages appears to be increasing at an alarming rate. One sham marriage can provide UK residence rights to an entire extended family who would otherwise have no right to be here.
The role of Registrars is critical. The Home Office should not only provide them with better feedback and training on reporting but also empower them to stop suspicious marriages.
Data is not being collected in a consistent manner across the UK. We cannot afford for any town or city to become a back door entry to our country. The Government needs to publish the total number of interventions, arrests, prosecutions and removals to prove that action is being taken.
It is absurd that we willingly accept as valid, marriages where the two parties do not attend the ceremony. This allows an easy ticket into the UK and this proxy marriage loophole must be closed immediately. Without taking these steps the Government will never get a firm grip on a situation which is spiralling out of control.
The backlogs continue to blight our immigration system with no appreciable reduction. The use of the term service standards is a way of moving the goal posts to relieve the pressure. The Home Office need to act now to ensure this problem is fully cleared as soon as possible.”
Given what we know about the case of Rapisarda, it is very likely, as we suggested when Munby’s Judgment was first published, that this case does indeed involve sham marriages with the intent to secure UK residence.
Despite Mr Vaz’s obvious rancour at the industry, we hope the government will treat this issue with the sensitivity it deserves. We can’t imagine what it must be like fleeing from war-torn countries or escaping hardship.
Researching Reform 
For those who are “fleeing from war-torn countries or escaping hardship”, there are other means of seeking entry. There are currently over 50 million refugees worldwide, and many millions of others who would wish to escape hardship. Do you want them all to have unrestricted entry?. And if not, where do you draw the line and using what criteria?.
The UN, People Smugglers, and law courts are now controlling and determining entry and immigration to many westernised countries. Surely the current residents of those countries and their political representatives should have the right to decide who enters that country and the acceptable reasons for their entry.
It is the current residents’ standards of living and quality of life which are at risk and which have suffered immense deterioration in the last few decades because of unrestricted and unlimited immigration.
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Hi Richard, as I’m sure you probably know, the conventional channels for seeking entry have become very narrow, for various reasons primarily economic, so people are, as you might expect, looking for other avenues to gain residence here.
Whilst I understand the need to balance compassion with pragmatism, all I’m saying is that in this debate we can be too quick to demonise what is essentially an act of desperation for many, and that we should tackle the issue of sham marriages with sensitivity. That’s all.
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Mr Vaz’s “obvious rancour” will strike a chord in many parts of the UK where Asian immigration represent a large proportion of a town’s population. It is, as he rightly says, ‘an industry’.
My next door neighbour has gone through 2 imported brides that I am aware of and there may be more – who knows ?.
One can’t help but note that whenever an issue is raised of a ‘social’ nature that pleas are made to be “sensitive.” But who pays for this sensitivity ? If we treat all topics with said ‘sensitivity’ will we not inevitably end up with the shambolic free-for-all mess we had during the 1990s ?
I can tell you what it’s like trying to avoid arrest and political detention in a dictator-run state and it’s nothing like sham weddings. So to confuse that with fleeing from war-torn countries or escaping hardship, IMO, beggars belief.
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I’m interested that you define the word sensitivity as meaning to allow all to enter the UK. You are not alone. A Richard before you on this post has defined it the same way 🙂 I think that tells us a lot about people’s thresholds and views on the issue.
For my part, the use of the word sensitivity was intended as defined by the English language: the quality or condition of being sensitive. That’s all. Acknowledging that those using sham marriages to enter the UK may be doing so out of an act of desperation and treating them with compassion, whether or not they end up staying here.
It’s very easy, I know, to become angry at the scenario when the country is struggling economically and when the British identity, both physical and cerebral, is evolving so much faster than before thanks to fast travel and the internet, but not everyone who seeks shelter here imports brides.
What I am essentially saying, is that whilst we may have to turn people away, some good, some not so good, we should be slow to judge.
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Frankly I want to tighten up our border control and any loop holes. As regards sham marriages, there should be greater penalties to deter those involved. Like most things that makes money its got out of control. Its become a huge money making industry that only benefits the organisers who charge from £10.000 per marriage. Cheap when you consider the benefits they can claim afterwards and of course the change in lifestyle. It started with foreigners “marrying” British girls to gain entry to the UK. Nowadays anyone from the EU who has rights to be in the UK can marry a foreigner who will then have rights to remain in the country. With an estimated 1 in 10 fake marriages this figure is not surprisingly rising. We forget there are many ways that these sham marriages are facilitated and often involve stealing innocent peoples identities who find themselves married! This is not a victimless crime!
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Hi D, thanks for your thoughts. Yes, there are many shades to this activity, often involving innocent parties, but not always. Perhaps we should have different penalties depending on the part each person plays? Or should we just allow the criminal system to use its discretion in mitigation and allow for a sliding range of penalties re sentences and fines and so on?
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Hi Natasha, I would favour the latter of your suggestions but I foresee a problem. Currently there is no consistency in sentencing. For the same crime the judges apply different penalties. This was pointed out by ex-MP Denis Shane who bemoaned that his colleagues were not prosecuted and convicted and sent to prison for the same crime as he! Bogus expenses claims. I think he was right about that, they should all have been prosecuted etc! I think he got off lightly, if I were the Judge I would have made him and all the other MPs pay back the money they stole from the taxpayer! They say crime doesn’t pay but the fact is he stole £13.000 and was only incarcerated for 7 weeks out of the 6 months conviction! The rest of the time he was tagged. That’s what he admitted to in one year, what of other years? We expect to hold our MPs in high regard and if they fall from grace they should hit the floor hard!
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Hi D, I see what you’re saying, but perhaps this is a case of abuse of discretion rather than discretion properly applied. If we had two people who stole bread, and one did it for fun whilst the other did it to survive, would we sentence them both in the same way? Would it be ‘right’ to do so? I think those are the fascinating, and age-old questions posed by conventional justice.
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Hi Natasha, Apologies for the delay in getting back to you. You are quite right in the points you made and you put it much better than I can. The judiciary is not applying discretion properly. In my earlier example of the MPs, that should have been across the board prosecutions and convictions with jail and pay back of monies stolen and loss of job! Not a token gesture as seen when MPs or that ilk comit a crime. In their cases it was hardly hardship! In other cases there may well be mitigating circumstances that would call for lighter sentencing. In many cases its a shame that there is not compulsory therapy instead of prison
. It seems to me that if you commit a crime against a person its a much lighter sentence than other crimes but much tougher sanctions are given in family court! What can be a worse “punishment” than taking your child and giving he/she to another to bring up! Isn’t it amazing the best minds in the world cannot come up with a better solution! Shame on them for not trying to keep families together and ultimately society less fragmented now and for the future!
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Thank you for your reply, D 🙂
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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2753844/Bride-delivery-service-sham-marriage-ring-exposed-couple-use-iPhone-app-converse-spoke-different-languages.html
Bride ‘delivery service’ for sham marriage ring exposed when couple ‘had to use iPhone app to converse because they spoke different languages’
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