If you want to stay, you have to pay. Non-EU spouses of British citizens have no automatic right to live and work in the UK. Among numerous other conditions, the British spouse must earn £18,600 a year for their other half to receive a working visa. Less than half of Britain’s working population earns this much. It means thousands of loving families are forced apart every year.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron wrote in 2014 that ‘When people’s love is divided by the law, it is the law that needs to change’. But there are a set of laws in the United Kingdom that do precisely this. If you’re a Brit married to a non-EU citizen, you must earn over £18,600 a year if you want them to live with you and work in the UK.

The laws are particularly tough on women with young children, with mums often having to choose between caring for their kids and attempting to earn enough to bring their husbands to the UK. People based outside major cities also struggle to find work that pays well enough to meet the government’s threshold.

Our film follows four couples battling with the Home Office. Some have had multiple visa refusals and face the threat of imminent deportation; others are thousands of miles away from their loved ones with seemingly little hope of a permanent reunion. Can they find a way to keep their families together or will this ‘tax on love’ prove too much for them to pay?

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