Rescuing Love from the Hostile Environment

ILPA Blog | Family and Personal Migration

BY MATTEO BESANA

By keeping families apart, the UK’s strict family migration rules, including the minimum income requirement, are harming people’s relationships, financial stability, mental health and well-being, with significant long-term implications, not least for children. Matteo Besana, Advocacy and Campaigns Manager at Reunite Families UK, outlines the findings of their recent research and considers ways in which the system could be improved.

The festive period, just passed, is a vivid reminder for us at Reunite Families UK of how this period, normally reserved for spending time together as a couple or family, is extremely triggering for all those who are prevented from being together due the UK’s strict family migration rules: all the rules, requirements and regulations that people have to follow if they want to live in the UK with family members (partner, stepchildren, adult dependent relatives) who were not born in the UK. This period also motivates us to continue the fight to change a system of family migration policies that, in the words of the House of Lords’ Justice and Home Affairs Committee, ‘fail both families and society’.

Chief amongst the rules keeping families apart is the Minimum Income Requirement (MIR), the salary threshold needed to sponsor a non-British partner or family member. In April last year, this threshold increased by 55.9%, from £18,600 to £29,000, a sum that roughly only 50% of the UK workforce earns. By becoming increasingly unaffordable, the MIR now means that the family migration rules are making loving a person from abroad a privilege that only higher earners can afford.

In our December 2024 evidence to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), we reiterated our strong opposition, not only to the MIR at the current level of £29,000, but also to the very concept of an MIR. In our view, such a requirement is a blunt instrument that does not achieve its policy objectives; instead, it imposes extremely harsh consequences on people just for the ‘mistake’ of falling in love with somebody born abroad.  

In our day-to-day work with couples and families impacted by the rules, at Reunite Families UK we see first-hand how the main (and perhaps) only ‘achievement’ of the policy is that it causes harm to British citizens, settled people and their family members: the impacts of the policy are corrosive for relationships, negatively affect mental health, financial stability and impact people’s sense of belonging. This has long-term negative effects on people’s integration into society and their economic performance, two of the policy’s chief objectives.

Over the course of the last six months, we conducted two important pieces of research into the specific impacts of the policy on children. The results (although still preliminary) confirm what we anecdotally already knew: while the policy undoubtedly undermines the mental and financial stability of applicants and their UK-based sponsors, it also deeply affects their children’s mental health. Importantly for policymakers, many of the impacts highlighted in these pieces of research, despite being widespread, were not considered in the Impact Assessment prepared by the Home Office when the recent changes were introduced.

Survey illustrates impacts on people on the family route (also known as spouse/partner visa route)

The first piece of research we conducted in the last six months has been a large-scale survey of people impacted by the rules of the UK family visa route, i.e. the visa that allows you to bring family members (eligible foreign nationals) to join you in the UK for an extended period of six months or more. Through an extensive questionnaire, we gathered the views of over 750 respondents, in what can be considered the biggest survey conducted to date with people impacted by the policy. The results evidenced the seemingly wilful destruction of the overall wellbeing of UK citizens and long-term residents, their children and their partners, with 83% of respondents indicating that their mental health had deteriorated. Even more worryingly for policymakers is the fact that 60% of respondents also confirmed that their child’s mental health had deteriorated. The policy is therefore not only contributing negatively to the public purse, but is also likely to put even greater pressure on a mental health sector and NHS services that are already struggling to cope with the current workload.

Children: the greatest victims of this policy

I feel so sad, without seeing my dad… [not having] mother around me. […] So, so sad.”

“[When I am nervous] my tummy is like… It hurts sometimes and like bubbles and makes me feel scared.”

“Every now and then I’ll open it [a cupboard] cause I’m looking for something and then I see her clothes and I smell her perfume… it’s just sad.”

Our second piece of research was to commission the Coram Impact and Evaluation team to carry out a series of child-centred interviews. The Coram Impact and Evaluation team works with the public sector, commercial and third-sector organisations, as well as with children, parents and academics, in order to evaluate services for families and children and help improve them. The above words are taken from interviews the team carried out.

The findings from these interviews, set out below, complement the findings of our survey and our anecdotal experience of the rules, and confirm children to be the greatest victims of this policy. Importantly, they also question the ways in which the Home Secretary is fulfilling her duty under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 ‘to make arrangements to ensure that certain specified functions are carried out having regard to the need to safeguard and promote the welfare of children who are in the UK.’ The findings confirm:

  • The MIR and the rules of the family visas are causing children worry, stress, uncertainty and anxiety:
    – Children reported physical symptoms of anxiety, sleep disturbances, selective mutism, and being unable to focus at school.
    – Children also reported feelings of sadness, guilt and loneliness due to the stress and separation caused by the MIR. Often, feelings of loneliness came from missing the parent who could not live with them and were exacerbated by the resident parent having to work long hours to meet the MIR.
  • Financial strain: Children are very aware of the extra financial strain on their family. Some children even reported trying to earn money themselves, to help with visa costs.  
  • Children report that separation had negatively affected their relationship with the non-resident parent/s.  
  • Children were often aware of the impact of the MIR and migration rules on family finances, wellbeing, and work-life balance
  • Some children found their family situation very hard to talk about.

There are, of course, also the hidden, long-term costs and consequences associated with this. On a personal level, children whose mental health has been negatively impacted are more likely to experience impaired mental health, lower life satisfaction and poorer health-related quality of life as adults. This will put additional pressures on the NHS, as set out above, and will result in negative impacts on the workplace: for instance, with employees experiencing poor mental health / increased stress or taking more leave to care for ill children.

Our members also tell us of another negative fiscal impact of the rules: how they have needed recourse to public funds which might not have been necessary if their partner had been able to join them in the UK.

The MIR: an ideological decision, not a pragmatic (or humane) one

With the body of evidence that has been amassed since the introduction of the MIR in 2012, starting with the report prepared by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and Middlesex University for the Children’s Commissioner of England in 2015, it is baffling to see how successive governments have continued to ignore the impacts the policy has on people and their children. It is baffling, unless the MIR and its subsequent increases are a deliberate and ideological policy, driven not by evidence but by the need to appear tough on migration regardless of its impact on net migration (if you agree that net migration has to be reduced) and content with the ongoing and lasting damages caused to British and settled residents.

The reality is that the MIR was never needed and has not had a massive impact on the net migration figures, and certainly not one that can justify the impacts outlined above.

In their call for evidence, the MAC asked respondents to assess whether the policy was meeting its objectives to:

balance respect for family life (under article 8 of the ECHR) with maintaining the economic wellbeing of the UK by controlling immigration, protecting the public from foreign criminals and protecting the rights and freedoms of others. The MIR and AM tests assess whether a UK family sponsor could afford to financially support their family member to come to the UK without having access to public funds.”

It is clear to us that the policy, in particular the MIR test, does not meet its policy objectives. In fact, the logic underpinning the test is fundamentally flawed. If the aims of the MIR test are to assess whether a UK family sponsor could afford to financially support their family member to come to the UK without having access to public funds, these aims would be met by the No Recourse to Public Fund condition which prevents the joining family members from accessing public funds until they are settled in the UK. This point was reiterated by the Home Office who stated in their 2024 Spring Immigration Rules: impact assessment (IA) that “the vast majority of migrants on visas in scope of this IA have ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ (NRPF) conditions attached to their leave to remain.”

It is also important to note that since the original policy was introduced in 2012, the UK social security support has been significantly reformed and it is now explicit that the presence in the UK of spouses without indefinite leave to remain (ILR) can only reduce and not increase social security entitlement. From the people we work with, we know that the sponsoring partner might have to rely on the benefits system to support themselves/their family when their joining family member is unable to come to the UK. Indeed, and somewhat perversely, the couple’s finances are additionally stretched due to them having to afford two residences (one in the UK, one abroad) whilst trying to be reunited. Of the enforced single mothers who responded to our survey:

  • 83% experienced an increase in financial pressure as a result of the rules;
  • 71% say they receive some form of state benefit (universal credit, income support, housing support);
  • 27% directly link having to apply for UK state benefits to the separation from their partner.

Essentially then, the policy is redundant because immigration and benefits rules already stop visa holders from claiming benefits until they are settled in the country. It is perverse because the costs associated with the visa, and a policy that prevents working-age family members from entering, not only combine to heap financial pressure on families, but also increase the costs of social security support whilst the families are apart.

The way forward: how to rescue love from the Hostile Environment

A useful approach could be to consider two ways in which things could be improved: either by abolishing the MIR altogether or by reforming it.

Abolishing the MIR

There are two key reasons why abolishing the MIR could be seen to be wholly unrealistic:

  1. The right to family life is a qualified right, as was shown by the MM (Lebanon) case in which, essentially, the Supreme Court held that the MIR in Appendix FM is acceptable in principle.
  2. The political reality is that any measures which seem not to be aimed at reducing net migration are quickly excluded from the political and public discourse, even if, in practice, they are unlikely to make a significant difference.

To counter this, we would argue that we are simply asking to go back to how things were prior to 2012, and to what the general public still believes to be the case, i.e. that if you are married or have a long-term partner, you are able to live together with them in the UK. Abolishing the MIR would therefore represent a common-sense decision, one that recognises our right to fall in love with whomever we choose, regardless of the passport they hold.

The other argument for abolishing the MIR is the fact that when looking at the family visas figures we can see that, contrary to what many politicians believe, it has not caused a massive reduction in the number of family visa granted. Instead, “the number of family unification visas issued by the UK remained relatively stable from 2009 to 2022, averaging approximately 38,000 per year”, with people on this visa being more likely than other groups to settle long-term in the country, demonstrating their commitment to the UK and their desire to build a successful life here for them and their families.

Reforming the MIR

If abolishing the MIR is not possible for political reasons, we would then argue for it to be decreased in proportion to the full-time National Minimum Wage (currently £23,795). This would be fairer for everybody across the country, and also easier to meet compared to the current rate of £29,000. It is, however, essential that the child element (the increase added to the MIR when the British/settled person was also trying to sponsor one or more non-British children) of the previous MIR is not reintroduced.

If the MIR is to be maintained, it must be accompanied by a reform of the Exceptional Circumstances route, the way in which people who don’t meet the requirements can still be granted leave to remain if a refusal by the Home Office would result in a breach of Article 8 of the ECHR. It is currently extremely difficult to meet the very high threshold required for this route, something the Home Office itself recognised in its Impact Assessment of the changes. Reform would make the route accessible to groups that would otherwise be discriminated against, such as people from specific ethnic groups, women, people from outside of London and the South East, those with caring responsibilities, etc. Any reform should also take into account the impact of the rules on people’s circumstances, for instance by looking at the impact to mental health of separation, exile, and financial pressure, on both adults and children.

Alongside reforming the Exceptional Circumstances route, the Home Office should also simplify the rules for couples and families for instance by:

  • allowing job offers made to the non-UK spouse/partner foreign national to be taken into account;
  • including contributions from reliable third-party support (such as that from parents and relatives) towards the MIR;
  • reducing the probationary period to settlement to two years as that is sufficient time to assess the relationship (with a five-year cap for exceptional cases)
  • Removing all the so-called ‘reset the clock’ mechanisms of applicants on the ten-year route now able to apply under the five-year route to settlement. 

Conclusion

In this piece I have tried to highlight the belief shared by the members of our community and many across the country that there must be a better way forward, one that does not willingly make the lives of so many people (and children) in our country so miserable.

Abolishing the MIR would enable a way forward that:

  • actively works towards improving the system for people who are or would like to be on the family visa route;
  • starts to reverse the isolationist trajectory taken by the UK immigration system;
  • recognises that those who apply under Appendix FM, also by virtue of the requirements of the route, are already committed to the country and want to contribute to the UK economy and society and simply ask to be able to establish their family life with their loved ones here in the UK;
  • does not willingly keep people in poverty until they are settled in the country;
  • puts at the centre of its work the idea of not harming the mental health and wellbeing of people that come into contact with it;
  • exposes the hypocrisy of many politicians who, whilst professing their support for policies that promote integration, are simultaneously putting more and more stumbling blocks in front of people’s path to a successful integration for them and their families.

Saying that we want to rescue love from the Hostile Environment should not be seen as starry-eyed. It should instead be seen as us asking the bare minimum of our Government: to allow individuals to fall in love, to start to dream about building a family in their home of birth or adoption, of wanting their children to grow up without seeing that suffering, poor mental health and poverty are caused by your own government.

In a nutshell: we want our Government to respect and protect the aspirations of the couples and families we support. Their aspiration should be worthier than the need to impose a pervasive and cruel immigration system in every aspect of our life.

Matteo Besana currently leads Reunite Families UK’s advocacy and campaigns work which aims to show the need to reform the UK’s family migration system and build a system that is fair and humane to bi-national couples and families. Prior to this he worked for many years at the intersection of advocacy and communication across various sectors, including environmental organisations, NGOs and local authorities in the migration sector including helping Local Authorities and individuals navigate the complexities of the No Recourse to Public Fund conditions and leading the COVID-19 Advocacy Project at Doctors of the World.

ILPA invites members and other leading experts to contribute articles to its monthly blog. The views expressed in all blog posts are the authors’ own and are not necessarily those of ILPA.