SA man to be deported after ruling UK wife's salary too low

A man from South Africa faces deportation from the UK after a court ruled his British wife's salary was not high enough, under a rule designed to stop foreign spouses becoming reliant on UK taxpayers.
Michael Engel, a 31-year-old yacht engineer living in Cornwall, said he and wife Natalie plan to go back to South Africa with 18-month-old daughter.
A Home Office spokesman said the rules were designed to stop foreign spouses becoming reliant on British taxpayers.
The couple were told of the immigration tribunal's ruling after they had appealed on the grounds of a right to family life, the BBC reported.

But under rules introduced in 2012, British citizens who want to bring a foreign spouse to the UK must earn 18,600 pounds a year and a further 3,800 pounds - a total of 22,400 pounds - if the couple have a child.
Mrs Engel's craft-making business made 19,786 pounds in 2014 which was deemed not enough by the tribunal panel, which met on December 3.

She said the decision made her feel like her family was being "kicked out" of the country.
She said: "I'm gob-smacked, lost for words, angry and deflated. I'm not so proud to be British right now."

But Judge Michael Wilson, who heard the appeal, said UK taxpayers "should not be expected to have to financially support the appellant in the event of him not obtaining work".
The couple are now awaiting a deportation date. They met in 2009 working on a cruise ship and lived in South Africa for four years.
They moved to the UK in January 2013 with Engel on a holiday visa, living first in Yorkshire and then in Cornwall.
In a statement the Home Office said: "Our family rules were brought in to make sure that spouses coming to the UK do not become reliant on the taxpayer for financial support.

"This is fair to applicants and to the rest of the public, and has been upheld by the Court of Appeal."
Average gross full time pay in Cornwall was 23,305 pounds for the year ending April 2014, compared with 27,195 pounds for the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics.