Mahmood's settlement overhaul frees care worker's family but leaves others facing a decade

Rasika Samarasinghe is throwing a party. The Sri Lankan care worker, who arrived in October 2022 and earns just over £25,000 looking after elderly people, has two reasons to celebrate: the Home Office has granted him the five-year settlement route Shabana Mahmood announced this week, and it has reversed its refusal to let his wife and three children stay in the UK as his dependants. The family had received 'go home' letters before officials told them the refusal should be disregarded. The Guardian understands similar decisions affecting other care workers' families have 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, a teaching assistant, is organising a party for church friends and everyone who backed them. Naga Kandiah of MTC Solicitors called the U-turn 'hugely significant and positive', noting the family came to Britain lawfully.

The concession came after pressure from Labour MPs and unions. Care workers who entered the route before May 2025 and earn at least £25,000 a year can now settle after five years, rather than the 15 the home secretary originally floated. Others still face another five-year visa before they can apply. Mahmood also confirmed applicants must show five continuous years without relying on benefits — a tightening of last year's proposal, which would have tacked up to 10 years onto the qualifying period for claimants.

That shift has left Aneisha Williams counting the cost. Williams, 39, a London supermarket worker, came from Jamaica in 2016 on a family life visa after marrying a British man. Her marriage broke down during Covid, leaving her and her British daughter homeless. She had the no-recourse-to-public-funds restriction lifted on hardship grounds and claimed housing benefit — with no effect on her settlement prospects at the time. Now, months short of qualifying after 10 years, she says she could be waiting another decade. 'We were never told this would happen, and never would have taken the help if we did,' she said, calling the policy racist. Research has found most people on the 10-year route are Asian or Black.

Mahmood insists family members of British citizens keep their existing settlement pathways, but how that protection covers broken-down marriages or past benefit claims is not spelled out. Ashley, a civil servant from Sheffield who asked to use a pseudonym, arrived from the US in 2017 and switched to a spouse visa after marrying a British man this year. She 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. 'I'm one of the privileged immigrants,' she said. 'And it is still so unbelievably hard.'

The crackdown has a longer tail. After the Home Office estimated in 2023 that about 120,000 dependants had joined 100,000 care worker applicants, it barred care workers from bringing family from March 2024 and banned overseas recruitment from July 2025. Samarasinghe's family arrived before both. The department says it does not routinely comment on individual cases but that initially rejected applications can be approved on review. Campaigners are only half satisfied: Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol of the Work Rights Centre called the response, beyond the care-worker concessions, 'bitterly disappointing' and 'deeply unfair', while Unison-backed carer Amenzei Ogiemwonyia said some are elated but 'we still need to read the fine print'. The Home Office reckons about 500,000 people will now wait more than five years to settle, saving billions from the welfare bill.