Increasing sham marriages a shame on UK immigration laws
by Christine M - January 8, 2010
United Kingdom, January 8: The latest figures released by the Home Office of UK have revealed a worrying increase in the number of fake marriages by illegal immigrants. This has been so since the past one year which saw nearly 54 percent increase in such marriages, agree various registrars in Wales and England.
The latest report is based on a special investigation by BBC in which a media correspondent, posing as an illegal immigrant himself, found several offers of sham marriages.
The fear among registrars is that more and more brides from Eastern Europe are being used by illegal immigrants to obtain UK visas since brides from EU can move about freely because of being members of the EU.
In the last 11 months till December 2009, nearly 529 cases of fake or sham marriages were reported which is up from the previous year’s (2008) fake marriage incidents numbering 344.
It seems that this increase in such incidents is due to the new ruling in July 2008 by the Law Lords which said that the condition of all foreign nationals requiring permission of the immigrant officials to marry was considered as breach of human rights.
As per the scheme introduced in 2005, all foreigners needed permission of the Home Secretary to marry in UK. Hence, those immigrants who did not seek permission were not provided a certificate of approval.
The registrars had argued for a change in rules prior to 2005 since they could not stop increasing number of bogus marriages, which rose to more than 3,500 in one year. And, once these rules were introduced in 2005, the number of fake marriage incidents fell dramatically.
But with the 2005 ruling overturned by the Law Lords in July 2008, registrars assert that the fake marriage rackets are returning in UK. And, if nothing is done to stop this, the things are certainly going back to square one, agree different registrars.
According to the superintendent registrar for the London Borough of Brent, Mark Rimmer, earlier, the government had addressed the issue and been successful too. And now too, it needs to stop bogus marriages in UK.
»
- 1497 reads
