The cost of family immigration to the UK

[mtbc]

I had mentioned our family visa fees. To give a clearer idea of how much the process costs to bring a family member to settle here in the UK, the full route from initial application to citizenship costs well over £8k in fees and well over £5k for NHS access during that period. That's per person, so tripled for R. and two kids. We get a bit of a discount because R.'s youngest is under eighteen but we're still looking on the order of £40k in total, and that's without legal fees which, if we were using a solicitor's team for the process, would probably increase it by half again. Of course, it doesn't cost the government anything like that much to process the applications, the equivalent process in the US is very much cheaper. Still, it strikes me that ability to pay the fees at all should be sufficient evidence of ability to support ourselves without resorting to public funds.

Comments

[shadowkat]

I had a co-worker - who married a woman from the Philippines. Met her online, visited her there, and she finally immigrated to the US and married him. Getting her green card - was a nightmare. He used to vent to me about it. We worked near each other, and talked a lot. He is a lawyer. But not an immigration attorney. He had to fight to get her the Visa and the Green Card, and she's currently working towards citizenship - which is apparently a lengthy process. She wanted to become a nurse - but they wouldn't let her and I'm not sure if it has been resolved. My co-worker was worried about immigration issues, which shouldn't be a problem - they are married.

It's just painful. So no, it's no necessarily easier in the US or cheaper, just different.