Reunite Families UK

This week, let’s remember: supporting children’s mental health also means keeping families together and giving children certainty. @cclcuk.bsky.social @praxisprojects.bsky.social @imixuk.bsky.social @migrantvoice.bsky.social

Children’s mental health week should be a call to action: we can’t support children’s wellbeing while designing policies that destabilise their lives.

Children don’t choose borders, paperwork, or income thresholds. But they live with the consequences. We owe them better.

If we’re serious about children’s mental health, we need family immigration rules that prioritise:

✅ keeping families together
✅ reducing delays and uncertainty
✅ preventing destitution
✅ child-centred decision-making

And when families are pushed into poverty, it gets worse. Mental health is not separate from housing, food, warmth and security.

Children deserve policies that protect their wellbeing — not rules that punish them for their parents’ status or income.

Family immigration rules can mean years of waiting, huge costs, and impossible requirements — all of which children feel, even when adults try to shield them.

Stress doesn’t stay in the paperwork. It shows up in sleep, behaviour, concentration, and anxiety.

It’s #ChildrensMentalHealthWeek 💛

Children need safety, stability and love to thrive.

But for many children in migrant families, life is shaped by fear and uncertainty:

Will my parent be allowed to stay?
Will we be separated?
Will we have a home?

A brief 🧵

300,000 children face 10-year wait for settled status under UK plans, says IPPR Thinktank analysis says proposed ‘earned settlement’ changes could trap families in prolonged insecurity

According to @ippr.org over 300,000 children will be put on a longer 10-year route to settlement due to the reforms being discussed.

Children and their families must not be placed on routes that have been repeatedly found to cause financial and mental hardship

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Government unsure how many NHS staff will be affected by immigration changes Labour announced proposed changes to immigration rules last year

The Govt admits it doesn’t know how many NHS staff will be impacted by settlement changes.

What does that mean for NHS waiting times, care for elderly, and patient safety?

Pushing ahead without considering the impacts on healthcare is a betrayal to us all.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

The consultation matters because once these rules are written into law, they could shape settlement for a generation.

🗓️ Deadline: 12 Feb 2026 — don’t wait until the last minute.

Prepare your answer and once ready fill in the consultation here👉 ukhomeoffice.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

When responding, if you can despite the Consultation's limited space available try to emphasise your personal experience e.g., how the changes would affect your family’s stability, job plans, children’s education, and ability to stay together.
Show the human side of these awful proposals

If you want practical support for answering the consultation, we together with a host of other orgs ( @migrantvoice.bsky.social, @ramfel.bsky.social, @ilpaimmigration.bsky.social @migrantsrights.bsky.social) prepared a guide to help you prepare your responses👉 reunitefamiliesuk.co.uk/wp-content/u...

The proposals also include new income-based requirements for settlement, which we fear will disproportionately impact essential workers, carers, stay-at-home parents, and those whose households support the family without meeting strict personal earnings thresholds.

Even for the partners of British citizens or BNO visa holders, despite the government's narrative, they won't be able to settle in the country until they earn at least over £12k in the 3 years prior to their settlement application.

These changes would affect family routes, including spouses, partners, children and dependants.
Many people now on a 5-year path to settlement could see it extended to 10 years or more unless they meet new earnings and contribution tests with highest earners (< £125k) receiving the best treatment

Unlike the current system — where most people can apply for settlement after a set period of lawful residence — the new proposals would make permanent status dependent on “earned” contribution through income, integration evidence, and other criteria with high earners being prioritised

🚨 Only 🔟 days before the "Earned Settlement" consultation on new rules for settlement (Indefinite Leave to Remain) in the UK — closes on 12 February 2026.

The consultation matters because once these rules are written into law, they could shape settlement for a generation so have your say now !
🧵

Shocking and yet unsurprising that the latest @jrf-uk.bsky.social UK Poverty found that 1 in 2 children in migrant families were in poverty compared to around 1 in 4 other children.
Children are the biggest victims of an extortionate immigration system.
No child should grow up knowing poverty.

Home Office tells Gaza academic his bid to bring family to UK not urgent Bassem Abudagga losing hope after being told wife must go to visa application centre, of which none remain in Gaza

Nothing shows the cruelty of the Home Office bureaucracy more than this story: a Palestinian academic was denied reunion with his family in the UK they ruled it wasn’t urgent and that his two children should remain with their mother in a tent in Gaza during war.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The Government must recognise this truth: having a family is not a privilege, it is a fundamental human right. Policies must prioritise compassion over calculation and keep families together.

Measuring human relationships in pounds and pence sets a dangerous precedent — one we’ve already seen emerging in proposals like the “Earned Settlement” framework.

Worse still, these draconian rules separate children from a parent, leaving families trapped apart across borders. This harm is real, ongoing, and urgent.

www.youtube.com/watch?list=T...

We must look at what current family migration rules already fail to deliver. British and settled residents are being denied the right to live in the UK with their loved ones.

reunitefamiliesuk.co.uk/families-bel...

YouTube video by Reunite Families UK RFUK - Overview of the UK's Spouse Partner Migration Policy - The Minimum Income Requirement [MIR]

While we respect the independence and quality of the MAC’s analysis, family migration was never intended to serve primarily economic purposes.

Judging it through that lens is wrong — and inhumane

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiJp...

As we read the headlines around the Migration Advisory Committee's analysis of the fiscal contribution of joining family members we're deeply concerned by attempts to reduce people’s worth to their fiscal contribution.

We reject this hostile approach — one that sacrifices everyone’s rights just to appease a hateful minority.
We deserve better. And we’ll keep campaigning to protect our shared rights.
Only by doing so can we truly uphold — and celebrate — human rights.

Take the European Convention on Human Rights.
It’s under relentless attack, yet it’s the very framework that helps many of the families we support reunite with loved ones when strict financial rules would otherwise keep them apart.
Dismantling it means denying the basic human right of a family life

We’re already seeing the consequences: worsening mental health, children growing up separated from one of their parents, and a persistent feeling among many that they are excluded or discriminated against in their own country — or the country they have chosen to call home.

This isn’t abstract. The constant denigration of human rights has real human costs — not only for today’s “enemy of choice” (migrants, refugees, people born abroad) but for all of us who live in this country.

Today should be a day to celebrate Human Rights our #OurEverydayRights.
Instead, we’re left reflecting on the countless ways those rights are being attacked, undermined and dismissed by our Government, our political class and much of our media.

Great to hear Rachel Reeves acknowledge that "there are many reasons why people choose to have children then find themselves in difficult times. The death of a partner. Separation. Ill health. A lost job. I don’t believe that children should bear the brunt of that."

So why should migrant children?