UK: Loophole allows polygamous immigrant families to be paid more benefits

The entrenched British bureaucracy cares about nothing but its own prerogatives. They will allow any law to be gamed, for the reason that rooting out fraud and obvious noncompliance takes work and effort, and is not beneficial to one's career.

The only real way to deal with polygamy by immigrants is to deport the husband and his wives and children after the first. He can support them in Afghanistan or Morocco, or wherever. The first wife and her children should be given the option of remaining in the country, under the condition she will receive no welfare benefits.

Dream on, Ronald.

Britain in its attempt to show how liberal and tolerant they are, is now hemorrahaging to death from the self inflicted wounds, of anti-Islamophobia. It's sad, to watch Britain, this once great nation destroy itself. I feel for the British people, but they like Americans are allowing it to be done to themself.

On "Facebook" there is a "Ban Sharia" page, one for those living in Britain and one for those in America. There were only 10 members on the British page, I remember thinking how sad, so very sad. We the Americans weren't much better, we had a few thousand, but we should have had millions.

Aprilyn

How is it that the additional wives are admitted to the UK in the first place? If subsequent marriages are not recognized in UK law, they presumably do not provide a basis for family unification immigration.

Britain? What Britain?

Oh ... you mean that weird little socialist Sunni country where England used to be.

We're being taken for a ride, and paying the fare.
Guardian July 31st 2012

More than 50 cases of people with learning disabilities forced into marriage were reported to the government's Forced Marriage Unit (FMU) last year. [Most cases reported to FMU involve families from South Asia]. Many say they were repeatedly raped until they became pregnant. Many routinely faced physical and emotional abuse.
"People with a learning disability can be particularly vulnerable to forced marriage," says Mark Goldring, chief executive of learning disability charity Mencap. "[Those] with a learning disability have a right to develop personal relationships, like anyone else … but the issue here is that incidences of forced marriage can involve people who are unlikely to have the capacity to consent to such a relationship."
[Sufia] Ahmed remembers begging for the abuse to stop. "I don't like this game. I don't want to play any more," she says she told her husband. She couldn't understand why it was happening. It continued for three years until, having acquired UK residency, her husband left.

The Guardian report was based on a BBC Radio4 "Face the Facts" programme broadcast today.

The BBC radio broadcast described a case of one young woman with severe learning disabilities who confided in a former teacher who informed the FMU. The woman had been told she was going on holiday. She was then forced into marriage, raped and came back pregnant. She was asked to sign forms that she did not understand. The forms were to sponsor her husband's visa for entry to the UK, The visa was refused, and it was discovered that she had already been married four times, each time to men who entered the UK on a marriage visa that, at least on paper, she sponsored.

ONLY "around 1,000 polygamous homes in Britain"?
FEWER "than 50 polygamous families claiming benefits"?

Why do these figures seem absurdly low? Could the government be lowballing the numbers and lying to taxpayers?No, surely not......

Just to be very clear onthe subject of ploygamy. It is not sanctioned by God. For example God gave Adam one wife. In the New Testament it reads "For this cause a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife..." Mathew 19:5. Jesus said "wife",not wifes. Nevertheless there are some people who will act as apologists for polygamy by saying that king Davied and then his son king Solomon did pratice this. Such people arn't taking into account that the only reason that God did tolerate this tradition was not because it was right or that He approved of it. It was because this practice of having many wifes was such an entreached costom in the ancient Middle East that God allowed it for the above just mentioned kings of Israel.
This did not mean that God liked or approved of it or that this costom was to keep going on in timeright down to the present.

Actually the government has done right here regarding polygamy. Polygamy has NO status in Britain. These women are not wives and cannot be treated like married women. (I wonder how the Muslim community would react if we called them adulteresses? I am reluctant to use this label, as the adultery of the husband is usually the more important problem - and a male adulterer does not receive the same stigma.)

The real problem lies elsewhere.

(1) As Billposer says, how can a man who is already married import another wife? Especially a childless bride (i.e., he is not "reuniting" with his own children)? The brides cannot usually be let in as "cousins"; only close relatives, i.e., one spouse plus dependent children, can usually be sponsored into the UK.

I suppose the mistresses can be let in as "students" who then never study. But in that case, they are supposed to go home when their visa expires. They would not be able to talk their way out of that unless they pleaded that they were "married" or at least named the British father of their child.

They could also be let in as employees, e.g. nannies, with the same issue of visa expiry eventually.

So the real problem here is a lack of coordination with the Immigration Department. Mistresses have no legal status in the UK, yet mistresses are being let into the country on all kinds of pretexts.

(2) There is a similar lack of coordination within the benefits system. Why is a single mother receiving full benefits when her child's father is known? If he is the father, he should be supporting the child - regardless of whether he was ever married to the mother.

I don't buy the "he needs benefits because he's unemployed" line. Only 30-50% adult male Muslims are unemployed. That means 50-70% are in work. They should be using their wages to support their children (and children's mother, should any child be less than 5 years old).

As for those who claim unemployment: if they are unemployed themselves, how can they sponsor an "employee" into Britain? Or even a first wife, if they don't have the money to support the expected future family?

Perhaps all those who claim unemployment benefits should be required to submit to a DNA test first. Yes, it's intrusive, but people who are receiving something for nothing should be willing to offer adequate proof that they are not cheating the system. Knowing the biological father of every child in Britain could save many people a great deal of heartache.

Click back to the original article in the Daily Mail, and read in the comments section how Middle Britain has reacted to the news. One Muslim tried to plead that polygamy helps women, but the vast majority are asking how these mistresses arrived in Britain in the first place. There is a remarkable unity in most people's opinions. I'm left wondering how a democracy has managed to function so widely of the wishes of the people.

The figure of 1,000 polyamous households was only a guess that some politician once made. Ane the figure of 50 refers to a limited geographical area. A more recent estimate from on-the-ground workers was 20,000 households. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2041244/Polygamy-Investigation-Muslim-men-exploit-UK-benefits-system.html

Of all the ways to bankrupt an already over-taxed people!

I wonder what Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips would have to say about this?

Fraud, thy name is Islam.

Alternatively: Islam, thy name is Fraud.

They need to make the husbands pay back all that welfare to the state and to be made to support those children and wives with extra taxes. After all, Islam only allows more than one wife as long as they are all supported the same.