Immigration Has a Human Cost
Written by Omatule, A Member of The Care Worker Advisory Board and Champions Project.
I arrived in the UK in October 2022 with my spouse and 5 year old child under the health and care work visa to work as care worker. Part of the requirement of the visa then was that I would be eligible to apply for a ILR after 5 years of continually living and working in the UK.
However the Government has recently announced proposed changes to the immigration policy to extend the requirements for ILR to 15years and this would have numerous impact on me and my family as highlighted below:
Financial impact
Longer periods of time spent on temporary visas would mean that me and my family members will have to pay more in immigration fees every 3 years when we renew our visa. There has been a recent increase in the renewal of visa fees and there is also no guarantee that there will not be any further increment in the future. This would put a strain to the family finance and expose me to incur debts as we are not entitled to public funds. Alongside this, the visa conditions of restricting extra work hours to only the care sector would make it difficult for me to be able to explore other skills in other sectors if I wish to.
Children
Currently, children are eligible for ILR at the same time as their parents, and both parents must have settlement for the child to qualify. The current proposed changes are still not clear on what would happen to my child once she turns 18. Will she lose her legal status or risk separation from family in a country she has grown up and come to know all her life?
What would happen to my partner who will now be expected to earn her settlement as my settlement does not automatically means she is settled?
The negative impact or risk of family separation is very high and I can’t imagine dealing with this effect of family separation if the proposed changes comes into effect.
Increased Risk of Exploitation
Being tied to a single employer without the ability to easily switch jobs, compounded by fears of having to wait up to 15 years for settlement, will make me deeply vulnerable to wage theft, poor working conditions, and abuse. Although my employer tries as much as possible to provide good working conditions, however there is no guarantee that the same working condition would exist for 15 years especially when there is a change in ownership or management of the business. So if the working conditions change along the line and I don’t have the luxury of switching employers without having the need to be sponsored, it puts me in a difficult situation and opens me up to being exploited and accepting terms and conditions from other employers to secure COS that I would normally not accept if my immigration status was permanent.
Effect on self esteem
We feel misled and unappreciated by the government who have continually created the perception in the eyes of the public that migrant care workers are a financial burden to the taxpayers. Whereas they also fail to mention that migrant care workers pay tax, NI and are not entitled to public funds as part of the visa conditions. This public perception has a way of creating tensions within work and public space and in the long run can negatively affect ones self esteem.
I would kindly request and urge the UK government not to see Immigration merely as a numbers or statistics and to put a more humane approach towards implanting any immigration policy because behind the numbers they are families and lives affected. Thus I want the government to consider the following when they are making the immigration policy that affect our lives.
- Guarantee full transitional protection for those already in the UK
This protection should apply not only to principal applicants but to households whose movement, finances, and family arrangements were made on that basis. In addition the transitional protection should not be restricted to those who work in the public sector (NHS), it should be extended to all care workers who work in both public and private sector and should be dated back to those who arrived from 2022 and subsequent years.
In other words there should be no retrospective application of immigration policy changes to those who are already in the UK irrespective of which ever sector they find themselves working
- Treat family settlement as a central policy and not a secondary attachment
I would want the government to reject policies that require family members to qualify separately in ways that fragment and divides household settlement, intensify financial pressure, or expose children to ageing out and educational disruption. This is an indirect way of employing divide and rule tactics which causes family instability. Family settlement should and can be approached as part of safeguarding, wellbeing, and integration, not as a residual category subordinate to labour control.
- Separate lawful residence from excessive employer power
Settlement reform cannot be made fair in a system where care workers remain excessively tied to a single employer. If sponsored migration continues in social care, then job mobility must be made materially possible. That means faster, simpler employer switching; more realistic grace periods after a sponsorship breakdown; stronger controls on repayment clauses and reference obstruction; and visible routes for workers to leave harmful situations without the immediate risk of status loss. Without this care workers would feel more valued and leave employers with no string attached if they feel they can no linger cope in unfavourable working conditions.
- Introduce a bridging status for workers leaving exploitative sponsors
I would urge the government to consider introducing a bridging route or temporary open work permission needed for workers leaving exploitative employers or those affected by licence revocation. This would reduce the coercive element in sponsored work, strengthen reporting, and create more structural balance in power towards workers.
- Align settlement policychanges withthe actual labour economics of care work
Settlement rules for care workers should therefore be judged against actual sector wages, real progression opportunities, and the costs imposed by renewals, training, transport, and household maintenance. A system that recruits people into structurally undervalued work and then penalises them for not progressing beyond it is not meritocratic and should be dealt away. It is structurally incoherent.
- Avoid extending NRPF deeper into thesettlement route
As a care worker I am willing to trade benefit access for route stability but this should not be misread as support for prolonged hardship. Any extension of NRPF-like conditions should therefore be assessed against debt, family strain, child wellbeing, and mental health. Stability without support is not neutral where my household would have been already financially compressed.
- Clear communication and transparent legislation
Government should therefore communicate any future policy changes with far greater clarity, including who is affected, when changes begin, what happens to those already in the UK, how dependents are treated, and what evidence will count towards settlement. Uncertainty and over politicisation of immigration policies in this case is not cosmetic. It is already functioning as harm and creating more tension and emotional breakdown for me including other care workers.
- Government should Embed migrant worker protection in adult social care workforce reform
Immigration policy alone cannot resolve the issue of workforce crisis in the care sector and is not the cause either, but it can further deepen it. Any future reform must therefore sit within a wider workforce strategy that addresses pay, progression, staffing levels, training, travel time, enforcement, and recruitment practices. Migrant care worker protection should not be bolted on after the fact. It should be treated as a very core element of workforce sustainability.
- Engage migrant workers and their households in policy changes
Future policy changes should involve more structured formal and informal engagement with migrant care workers, dependants, campaign groups, unions, and frontline providers before reforms are finalised. Technical policy design without these voices will continue to miss the mechanisms through which harm is produced