Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood’s hardline immigration reforms will hit at least two million people, including around half a million children already in the UK and could make child poverty worse, a new analysis claims.
A study of Home Office official data suggests that as of the end of last year, between 2.06 million and 2.47 million people currently hold immigration status that directly leads to settlement, including between 426,000 and 593,000 children.
All of these people will be affected by the Home Secretary’s controversial plan to make it harder to settle in the UK by doubling the default qualifying time for indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years and applying it retrospectively to people already in the UK.
Shorts
The Work Rights Centre (WRC), a charity which helps migrants find employment, which carried out the analysis of official data, said these people could find it harder to integrate in the UK, while more adults could face exploitation and more children could be driven into poverty if the rules are applied retrospectively.
