Sham marriage ‘industry’ increasing at an alarming rate

• Report: The work of the Immigration Directorates (October-December 2013)
• Report: The work of the Immigration Directorates (October-December 2013) (PDF)
• Inquiry: The work of the Immigration Directorates (2013 Q4)
• Home Affairs Committee

• The organisation of sham marriages is a industry and appears to be increasing at an alarming rate.
• We are not convinced that the Home Office has a true understanding of the scale of the problem.
• A sham marriage does not just provide UK residence rights to one person but to many other family members.

• We recommend that the law be changed 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.
• The Home Office should provide training on how to identify potential shams and, most importantly, it should provide full, accurate and timely information to the Registrars to tell them what action is being taken as a result of their reports.

• The Home Office should publish not just the number of interventions and arrests, but importantly the number of prosecutions and the number of people removed from the UK in order to deter people from involving themselves in these activities.
• The Home Office should write to the Embassises of those European nationals who are most commonly involved in sham marriages, and encourage them to inform their UK based citizens that sham marriages can lead to a criminal record and removal from the UK.
• The burden of proof for a couple applying for a residence card based on a proxy marriage should be placed on them to prove the marriage is lawful.

• The total backlog of immigration cases remains at 332,169 and does not appear to be reducing at an appreciable rate.
• The total number in the Migration refusal pool has only decreased by 1% since the start of the year despite the Home Office contracting the work to Capita.
• We are concerned with the large increase in the number of in-country applications where the application has been received and is waiting input onto the Home Office computer system.

Chair's comments

Rt. Hon Keith Vaz MP, Chairman of the Committee said:

“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.”

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