'I feel free now': Shabana Mahmood's immigration overhaul brings relief to care workers but leaves others in limbo

Shabana Mahmood's shake-up of the immigration system has provoked sharply mixed emotions, offering a faster route to settlement for some care workers while leaving other migrants facing years of extra waiting. Under pressure from Labour MPs and unions, the home secretary this week offered qualifying care workers a five-year settlement route, but others, among them partners and former partners of British citizens, face continued uncertainty.

Aneisha Williams, a 39-year-old supermarket worker from London, was months from qualifying for indefinite leave to remain after 10 years in the UK. Because she claimed housing benefit, her settlement could now be delayed for years under Mahmood's earned settlement plans. Williams married a British man in her native Jamaica and joined him in the UK in 2016, and her daughter, now 18, is British. When her marriage broke down during the Covid crisis, the pair were left homeless while she was on a family life visa. Migrants with no recourse to public funds can have that restriction lifted in cases of hardship, as Williams did, and at the time housing benefit transformed her life without affecting her settlement prospects. "The only time we're regarded as human beings is when they need a lot of hands onboard, like during Covid," she said. "But after that, we're tossed away like we're some rubbish."

Last year Mahmood proposed adding up to 10 years to the settlement qualifying period for benefit claimants, and this week she said applicants must have spent five continuous years without relying on benefits. While she says family members of British citizens will retain existing settlement pathways, how that protection applies to people whose marriages have broken down or who claimed benefits remains unclear. Williams said she had been due to qualify within a couple of months and could now face another decade of waiting. Research has found most people on the existing 10-year route are Asian or Black. "It's a racist policy," Williams said, adding that the rules seemed to change every other year in ways that deepened her hopelessness.

Ashley, a civil servant from Sheffield who asked to use a pseudonym, arrived from the United States in 2017 and moved from student and graduate visas to a spouse visa after marrying a British man in 2025. She had expected to qualify in 2027 under the 10-year long-residence route, which the government plans to end. With transitional arrangements unclear, she fears waiting until 2030, by which point she estimates she will have spent £25,000 on visa and healthcare charges. She described herself as one of the privileged immigrants, from a white English-speaking country with a PhD and a British husband, and said it was still "so unbelievably hard".

For many care workers, however, the announcement brought genuine relief. Under the revised plans, those who entered the route before May 2025 and earn at least £25,000 a year can qualify for settlement after five years, rather than the 15 originally proposed. Others face another five-year visa before settlement.

Rasika Samarasinghe, who arrived from Sri Lanka in October 2022 and earns just over £25,000 caring for elderly people, is planning a double celebration. As well as the settlement change, the Home Office has reversed its refusal to let his wife, a teaching assistant, and their three children, aged 12, nine and eight, remain in the UK as his dependants, telling the family after sending them "go home" letters that the refusal should be disregarded. The Guardian understands similar decisions affecting other care workers' families have also been reversed.

"I felt so shocked and hopeless when the Home Office said my wife and children could no longer stay here," Samarasinghe said. "The children are delighted they can stay at school with their friends. Now we can plan our future. I feel free now." His wife is organising a party for their church friends and everyone who supported them.

The government began restricting care workers' family visas after the Home Office estimated in 2023 that about 120,000 dependants had joined 100,000 care worker applicants. Care workers have been barred from bringing family since March 2024, and overseas recruitment was banned from July 2025; Samarasinghe's family arrived before both. A spokesperson for the Home Office said it did not routinely comment on individual cases, but that applications initially rejected could be approved after a review.

Naga Kandiah of MTC Solicitors welcomed the U-turn as "a hugely significant and positive outcome", while Amenzei Ogiemwonyia, a care worker who campaigned with the Unison union, said: "We organised and refused to be silent." She said the Fairer Visa Campaign had stood up to "rightwing press, lies, propaganda and politics", but cautioned that some remained wary pending the fine print. Campaigners remain concerned: Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, called the response beyond the care worker concessions "bitterly disappointing" and said it was "deeply unfair" that some workers who came expecting a five-year route would now wait 10 years. The Home Office estimates about 500,000 people will have to wait longer than five years for settlement, which officials say will save billions from the welfare bill.