Minimum Income Required: U.K. Migration Rules put a Price on Family Unification

Britain’s “minimum income requirement” restricts citizens and legal residents who earn less than £18,600 ($24,000) from bringing their spouses from outside Europe to live with them. Journalist Ismail Einashe looks at the consequences of this threshold, advanced by now-Prime Minister Theresa May when she was home secretary, on parents and children. Einashe describes how the 2012 law has created thousands of “Skype families” who go years without seeing one another, and how its opponents warn it will lead to a brain drain from the United Kingdom.