How hostile immigration rules push people into poverty & homelessness
Here at Praxis, we support people marginalised by hostile immigration policies with legal advice and community support. We see every day how cruel and costly immigration rules push people into poverty, debt, and destitution.
Despite only making up 14% of the population, nearly 1 in 3 people sleeping rough is a migrant (as of Autumn 2022). Sadly, this is true for our community too, almost 1 in 5 people who spoke to us in October 2023 told us they had spent one night or more on the streets in the last 6 months.
This is no coincidence – the hostile environment makes people homeless. Here’s how…
No Recourse to Public Funds
No Recourse to Public Funds is a visa condition that prevents most migrants from accessing most forms of government support, even if they are on the streets facing a crisis. This applies to people who came here to work, study, join families, or those waiting on their asylum application. It also includes hundreds of thousands of children, including some who are themselves British citizens.
As well as being applied to the visas of an estimated 2.6 million people, the condition also applies to people who don’t have a valid visa, perhaps because they can’t afford the fees or overstayed. Whilst not everyone in this situation might need a safety net right now, we know that over 100,000 are experiencing desitution and have no access. This applies to the cost-of-living support and childcare expansion currently being rolled out.
The consequences of No Recourse to Public Funds are devastating. It traps individuals and entire families into cycles of poverty, pushes people into homelessness and leaves children hungry. 61% of people in the Praxis community that we spoke to told us they had on occasion cut down on the size of meals or skipped them entirely because there was not enough food.
The policy targets migrant communities who are mostly communities of colour and further reinforces existing structural inequalities and patriarchal structures, disproportionately impacting single mothers, children of colour and people with disabilities.
“It’s mostly Black and Asian migrants and their children who suffer from the impact of the No Recourse to Public Funds policy. People of colour have worked endlessly even throughout the pandemic and have experienced a higher death rate. Yet we are the least recognised by people in power. We give so much but get so little, how is this fair?”
Campaigner in the No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) Action Group
Extortionate visa fees
The UK has some of the highest visa fees and charges in the world. Yet in October 2023 and February 2024, the Government further increased prices by a huge amount, with a family of four on the ten-year route to settlement now facing a bill of £10,000 every few years just to maintain their visas. And we know these fees were already a key factor in pushing migrant families into debt.
Hiking the prices well above the actual cost of processing the application whilst the cost of essentials like food and rent remains eye-wateringly high will only make things worse.
“This Government is treating us like cash cows, but the truth is that we’re already living from hand to mouth. This visa fee hike is the last straw which will push so many of us into utter destitution – when the full set of new fees kicks in, we will be expected to pay almost £4,000 every two and a half years just to live in our homes. We are facing impossible decisions – whether to feed our children and pay our rent or save for the next round of visa fees. What this measure will do is ensure that we can’t raise our head above the water for years. This is a racist move that will likely impact black and brown communities the most – people that are already struggling to stay afloat. Making us pay more than the administrative cost to renew our leave to remain is unfair. To kick us when we’re down during a cost-of-living crisis is outright inhumane. This Government should reverse their decision and charge us administrative costs for renewing our visas, instead of seeing us as an endless source of profit.”
Anna Berry*, a person with experience of the migration system and a campaigner in the NRPF Action group, *name has been changed for safeguarding purposes.
Long routes to settlement
As well as having no access to public funds and having to fork out for extortionate visa fees, hostile rules mean people also have to wait years to have a sense of security over their lives. Long and complex routes to settlement, such as the ten-year route, mean people must reapply for leave to remain every two and a half years, each time paying more fees and proving they belong.
An estimated 170,000 people are on this route. People on the ten-year route have permission to stay in the UK because of their family connection to, or length of residence in, the UK. Some examples of people who might find themselves on a ten-year route are a parent of a British child, a spouse of a British national, or someone who has been in the UK already for 20+ years. Often people on this route are women, mothers, of African or Asian heritage, working in health and social care or cleaning. Shorter routes to settlement are only available to those who meet very strict requirements, including meeting a minimum income requirement – which has recently been increased to £29,000 per year. This means that those who typically earn less end up paying more in visa fees and waiting longer for security.
Long and costly routes to settlement like the ten-year route push people into poverty and homelessness. 1 in 5 people surveyed on the ten-year route to settlement told us they have experienced homelessness.
“If we cannot live with peace, how can we raise balanced children, how can we protect them, how can we contribute to our communities?”
Campaigner in the NRPF Action Group
Asylum accommodation evictions
The Refugee Council’s recent report found homelessness amongst newly recognised refugees increased by 239% in the last two years. This staggering increase is a direct result of the Prime Minister’s attempts to “cut the backlog” in asylum applications and close hotels being used to house people waiting on their asylum cases.
In August last year, the Home Office changed the amount of time newly recognised refugees have before being evicted from accommodation to just seven days. This meant that refugees were being made homeless at a week’s notice. Whilst the Home Office quietly backtracked and the ‘move on’ period is again 28 days for refugees, this is still not enough time to find a safe place to stay, secure a job or apply for benefits - especially in a housing crisis.
In addition, there was a record-breaking increase in the number of applications being withdrawn without any final decision on their case in 2023. We’re seeing a worrying number of people whose cases have been wrongfully withdrawn by the Home Office. For example, people are being informed they missed a meeting with the Home Office and so their asylum case has been withdrawn but they never received the letter about the meeting or was sent it after the date of their meeting. When your asylum case is withdrawn, you are no longer entitled to asylum support and accommodation. People end up destitute, pushed to the margins, and on the streets with no where to turn.