Here’s the letter, a change from her usual tack when it comes to immigration issues.
Home-Secretary-letter-to-NGA-law
Also read
Who do some useful reading between the lines on what the letter says
So far no public announcement has been made and the letter provides only the broadest of details.
Visas will be granted “outside the Immigration Rules”, meaning the scheme will be a discretionary one. While this sounds alarmingly vague, much of the UK’s immigration and nationality law on surrogacy is discretionary, and Home Office officials should be given clear guidance to follow.
Pregnant surrogate mothers
We can say for sure that pregnant surrogate mothers and their “immediate family members” will be eligible for three-year visas to live in the UK with access to public funds and employment.
The application will be free to make and there will be no Immigration Health Surcharge.
The information available so far suggests this route will mirror the Ukraine Family Scheme. In other words, surrogate mothers will be permitted to enter the UK as though they were family members of the intended parents.
This doesn’t mean the surrogate mother will have to live with the intended parents or that they will be financially responsible for her (although they are free to arrange things that way if they wish to).
It simply means that if the surrogate mother and intended parents can prove their relationship, then the surrogate mother will be eligible to come to the UK on this basis. Proving the relationship would presumably, in most cases, require evidence of the surrogacy arrangement, the pregnancy and, where possible, a letter from the clinic or agency with details of the case.
Only the surrogate mother’s “immediate family” can come with her, which is likely to mean her children and partner. Ukrainian children who don’t have a passport can, under the Ukraine Family Scheme, be included on their parents’ travel documents.
Read more at. https://freemovement.org.uk/intended-parents-can-bring-ukrainian-surrogate-mothers-to-the-uk/
Also the BBC has just published the following
Ukraine: Impossible choices for surrogate mothers and parents
On the day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Svetlana found it hard to believe that what she was watching on the news was really happening.
Things were calm in her home town, Bila Tserkva, a historic city on a winding river 80km (50 miles) south of Kyiv.
Then the explosions began.
Svetlana and her husband dragged their mattresses into the corridor of their apartment building and huddled there with their three children. The noise of the sirens was constant and they didn’t sleep for days.
Thousands of miles away in Australia, Emma Micallif was frantically messaging. The two women are intimately connected because Svetlana is pregnant with Emma’s second child. As rockets fell on Bila Tserkva Emma felt angry and helpless.
For six months the two mums had chatted back and forth using a translation app. They shared pictures of their children, discussed the things they liked to bake with their kids or moaned about the stress of pandemic home-schooling.
Full article
Intended parents can bring Ukrainian surrogate mothers to the UK
