Sheona York, a specialist in immigration and asylum cases at the Kent Law Clinic, comments on how little attention is being paid to how the energy bill crisis will affect family migrants:<\/p>\n
\u2018No politicians \u2013 nor any mainstream media \u2013 are considering the plight facing family migrants on long \u2018routes to settlement\u2019, who, besides having to save around \u00a31000 per applicant per year to renew their visas, have no recourse to public funds (NRPF). In other words, they have no access whatsoever to safety-net payments. Most of the cost-of-living support schemes listed on the\u00a0government website<\/a>\u00a0exclude those who have no recourse to public funds \u2013 and even British citizen children of such migrants may not even receive child benefit.<\/p>\n \u2018As we saw from the Covid-19 pandemic, many \u2018essential workers\u2019 in food processing, transport, health and social care are migrants on time-limited visas (work, family or long-resident \u2018private life\u2019 visas) with NRPF, who found that Covid-19 support measures often did not assist.<\/p>\n \u2018The Home Office will say, as they did then, that individuals and families subject to NRPF who cannot cope may apply to \u2018vary their conditions\u2019 to gain access to benefits. Yet, these applications are complicated and may affect people\u2019s future rights to remain. And the Home Office, mired in delays of months for every single type of application, is simply not capable of responding in time. Better, more efficient, and more humane, to abolish the NRPF condition, at least for those on \u2018routes to settlement\u2019 \u2013 these are people who expect to live in Britain for the rest of their lives. This would be targeted support \u2013 no-one can claim more than their financial entitlement.\u2019<\/p>\n Sheona York<\/em><\/a>\u00a0is a specialist in immigration and asylum cases at the Kent Law Clinic. Sheona focuses her research on issues arising from recent and current UK immigration policies such as the aim to reduce net migration, to discourage unlawful migrants through the \u2018hostile environment\u2019 and to deport foreign criminals.<\/em><\/p>\n Sheona\u2019s latest book \u2018The impact of UK immigration law \u2013 declining standards of public administration, legal probity and democratic accountability\u2019 is published by Palgrave Macmillan:<\/em>\u00a0https:\/\/link.springer.com\/book\/10.1007\/978-3-030-98721-3<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"