Moving to Scotland from the USA

The National newspaper in Scotland has reported that since Donald Trump won the American presidential election there has been a surge in Google searches originating in the USA for “how to move to Scotland” and “Scottish citizenship”. I have been contacted by two American friends the day after the election asking for advice about moving to Scotland.

My husband made the move to Scotland from the USA in 2019 and later this month he is finally eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK, the equivalent in the UK to the American green card which gives foreign nationals the right to live and work indefinitely in the USA.

I am no immigration lawyer and I strongly suggest that if you are serious about moving to Scotland from the USA you hire the services of a good immigration lawyer who understands the complexities of UK immigration law. However since my husband and I have been dealing with the complexities and stresses of the UK immigration process for almost six years now, I thought that readers, particularly those in America who are reeling from the outcome of yesterday’s election, might like to hear about our experiences.

The first point is that you will note that I have been talking about UK immigration law, not Scottish immigration law, nor indeed Scottish citizenship. Much as I dearly wish it were otherwise, there is no separate Scottish immigration law and no separate Scottish citizenship.

Scotland is still a part of the United Kingdom and as such Scottish people have British citizenship and passports and the British Government in London determines immigration law for those wishing to move to Scotland the same as those wishing to move from abroad to any other part of the UK.

Given the unique demographic challenges faced by Scotland, the Scottish Government has long sought the devolution of aspects of immigration law and the creation of a Scottish visa in order to encourage those working in sectors vital to the Scottish economy such as hospitality and social care to move to Scotland. Both Labour and Conservative figures have previously signalled that they were open to such an idea. In 2016 Michael Gove suggested that Scotland could be given greater control over immigration if the UK exits the European Union. He told BBC Scotland that former Labour MP Tom Harris, who was heading the Leave campaign in Scotland, had written to then First Minister Nicola Sturgeon explaining how Scotland “can have a greater degree of control over immigration policy” after Brexit.

Of course Gove and the Tories conveniently forgot all about this once they had got the Leave vote they were looking for. So there are no separate visa rules for anyone who is not a British or Irish citizen wishing to move to Scotland from abroad. The current Labour government has said that it has no intention of changing this.

There is a common travel area between the UK, including Scotland, and the whole of the island of Ireland. There are no customs checks or passport controls between the UK and Ireland and Irish passport holders have the legal right to live and work in the UK and enjoy the same rights as British citizens, including the right to vote.

However if you are neither a British nor an Irish citizen then moving to Scotland from the USA is by no means simple. You do not automatically get British citizenship if you were born in the UK. It depends on when you were born and your parents’ circumstances. If you were born in the UK before 1 January 1983, you are automatically a British citizen. If you were born in the UK after 1 January 1983 but before 1 October 2000 you are a British citizen if at least one of your parents was a British or Irish citizen, or a citizen of an EU or EEA country and living in the UK with free movement rights. Different rules apply for those born later.

If you were not born in the UK but have at least one parent who was a British citizen at the time of your birth you could also still be a British citizen, but if that parent is your father he must generally have been married to your mother for you to inherit British citizenship.

Ireland has its own citizenship rules. These are typically less restrictive than the equivalent British rules. You qualify for Irish citizenship if you have at least one grandparent born anywhere in the island of Ireland. With an Irish passport you are free to live and work anywhere in the UK, including Scotland.

If you have at least one grandparent who was a British citizen and you are a Commonwealth citizen, a British overseas citizen, a British overseas territories citizen, or a British national (overseas) you can apply for a UK Ancestry visa. This gives you the right to live and work in the UK for five years, after which you can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. This is of course not much help to people wanting to move to Scotland from the USA, unless they also have Canadian citizenship.

If you are not a British or Irish citizen, and don’t qualify for a UK Ancestry visa, moving to Scotland from the USA or anywhere else abroad becomes much more difficult. Freedom of movement for EU and EEA citizens stopped after Brexit, even though Scotland voted against Brexit. That’s a whole other story. The two main routes are through a job offer or by marrying a British citizen. I have no experience of the first route, but I am all too familiar with the second.

My husband is an American citizen who does not count any UK or Irish citizens amongst his ancestors -recent or otherwise – we have personal experience of the expensive and stressful process of securing residency in Scotland for him. We got married in Maine, where much of his family is from, in October 2018. Then we embarked on the expensive and time consuming process of getting him a spouse visa to come and live in Scotland. This was granted in September 2019 and he moved to the UK in November that year.

To qualify for a spouse visa the UK partner must prove that they have a suitable place to live, either a title deed or a mortgage or rental contract. The UK partner must also demonstrate that they have an annual income of more than £29,000 before tax. Only the income of the UK partner is taken into account, the income of the foreign partner is not taken into consideration.

The couple must present a copy of their marriage certificate, but above and beyond that the couple must demonstrate that theirs is a genuine relationship. This is where it gets intrusive. We had to submit wedding photographs as well as photographs of the two of us together and in addition printed transcripts of our online text conversations. We also submitted testimonials from guests at our wedding who confirmed that we are indeed a genuine married couple and ours was not a marriage of convenience. We also had to swear that we intended to live together permanently in the UK after we applied for the visa.

Applying for this visa currently costs £1,846 if you are applying from outside the UK. Typically it can take up to six months to get a decision but if you pay £1000 extra you can get an expedited decision within a couple of days. The spouse visa lasts for two and a half years. On top of the visa fee you must also pay an NHS surcharge which is currently £1,035 per year. You must pay this even if you have private health insurance. You must pay the full amount for the entire duration of the two and a half year visa, that totals £2587.50 which must be paid up front. This brings the total in fees to £4433.50, and that’s without paying the £1000 extra for a quick decision or the fees charged by an immigration lawyer. A lawyer will typically charge about £1000 or more, bringing your total cost to over £6400 if you want a quick decision from the Home Office. There is an extra income qualification if you have dependent children. £3,800 a year for the first child and £2,400 a year for each additional child you have after the first child. That means for a couple with two kids the UK spouse must demonstrate an annual income of £35,200.

After two and a half years the spouse visa expires and you must go through the entire process all over again. This time you can make the application on joint household income, and must demonstrate that you have an annual income of more than £29,000 before tax if you have no dependent children. However even if your spouse has been working since they arrived in the UK and has been paying UK income tax and national insurance for two and a half years, they must still pay the NHS surcharge again in order to renew the visa for another two and a half years. You must also submit evidence to prove that you have been cohabiting since your spouse arrived to live in the UK.

My husband’s second spouse visa is due to expire in February next year and later this month he becomes eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK. We must prove that we have a combined household income of more than £18600 a year – the income threshold which was in place when he made his initial application in 2018 – and again submit evidence to prove that we have a home to live in and that we have cohabited since his last visa application. He has also had to sit and pass a Life In the UK test which cost £50. Essentially this is a glorified multiple choice pub quiz which asks incredibly irrelevant questions such as When did the Viking Invasions begin? and questions about a certain World Cup final in 1966. Yeah, really.

The Home Office fee for Indefinite Leave to Remain is £2,885, a total of £2935 including the cost of the Life in the UK test. This time at least he does not have to pay the NHS surcharge. If you are not prepared to wait up to six months or more for a decision you must pay £1000 extra. Again if you use an immigration lawyer, and this is strongly advisable, you must pay the lawyer’s fees on top of the visa fees.

At an absolute minimum, over the course of the five year pathway to Indefinite Leave to Remain, you’ll pay £11802 in Home Office fees and NHS supplements. If you pay for an immigration lawyer and pay the extra for a quick visa decision, you are looking at a total cost of £17800 or more. These sums are beyond the means of many working people in Britain.

We are currently in the final stages of getting the paperwork together for my husband’s application for Indefinite Leave to Remain. Given the expense of it, needless to say Christmas is cancelled in our house this year. Our present will be the knowledge that we can continue to live together without ever having to go through this process again. As regular readers will know, I have been significantly disabled since suffering a massive stroke four years ago and I depend on my husband for help with daily living and mobility. I’d be lost without him and would have to apply to social services for carers’ visits, this adds an extra layer of anxiety to what is an already stressful process.

Scotland needs more people, and my husband’s experience is that people in Scotland are friendly, welcoming, and accepting of those who choose to make their lives in our country. But as long as Scotland remains a part of the UK our immigration laws are cruel and regressive because they are set by a Westminster which is in thrall to the right wing Anglo-British nationalist press and the xenophobia of English nationalism. It’s yet another reason why independence is so badly needed.

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