Young married couple forced out of the UK

The UK government’s immigration policy which seeks to combat forced marriages has seen a young married couple lose their High Court battle to remain in Britain.

Instead, 18-year-old Amber Aguilar of Friern Barnet in north London has now moved overseas in order to remain with her 19-year-old husband, Chilean Diego Andres Aguilar Quila, as his student visa had officially expired. UK immigration policy means that Mr Aguilar is denied the right to a new visa to reside in Britain until him and his wife both reach the age of 21.

Representative for the couple Christopher Jacobs claimed that the Home Office was employing unreasonable and irrational practices against the two teenagers, making them suffer for forced marriage legislation despite their union being clearly authentic. Jacobs argued that under Article 8 in the European Convention on Human Rights the couple’s rights to a family life were being deliberately denied.

However, the case was thrown out after Justice Burnett ruled that Alan Johnson, Home Secretary, had not breached any regulations, adding that requiring the couple to live abroad in order to fulfil policy criteria was not unreasonable.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), which first took on the case, said inflexible immigration policy was driving families apart. According to the JCWI the married couple was currently in a cramped apartment sharing a single bed in Santiago where no welfare system exists and no work has been able to be found.

In court, the couple was called unlucky, given that law changes creating the no under-21’s policy came into effect just five days after their marriage last year. Previously, once a woman was 18 she could apply for her husband to remain with her in the UK.