The Bureau Investigates: Ban on Family Members ‘Will Force Migrant Care Workers Into Poverty’
Preventing overseas care workers from bringing their families to join them in the UK is a dehumanising move that will “sentence workers to destitution”, according to care workers and support organisations.
The policy is one of the measures to slash net migration that were announced by the home secretary James Cleverly this week. His proposals also include increasing the earnings threshold for those who want to bring foreign relatives to the UK, and refusing other types of skilled worker visas to those paid under £38,000.
For the past eight months, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) has been speaking to migrant workers, not-for-profit organisations and employment rights experts to understand the inequalities and exploitation faced by those coming to the UK to work in the care sector. Many of those to whom we spoke planned to bring relatives with them, or had already.
There are more than 150,000 vacancies for social care workers in the UK. Care is the only industry which will be covered by the ban on family members, leading to criticism that the move is discriminatory.
“It’s a distraction [and] does nothing to address the real problem of systemic exploitation,” said Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, an organisation that supports migrant workers.
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