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How hostile immigration policies affect mothers and their access to support

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 21 April 2023

Southeast Asian mother leans from kitchen doorway as father feeds baby at home. Credit: Cultura Creative / Adobe Stock.

Credit: Cultura Creative / Adobe Stock.

Rachel Benchekroun.

Hostile immigration policies in the UK constrain mothers’ personal relationships and restrict their access to different kinds of support. This means that mothers affected by these policies have to be especially creative and resourceful in their everyday mothering. This can create a significant emotional burden.

Immigration policies in the UK have long been regarded as hostile and racist in their effects. However, in 2012 – in its quest to reduce net migration – the Coalition government set out its plans to create an explicitly ‘Hostile Environment’. Primarily targeting people with no or only temporary residency rights, measures have included dramatic increases in Home Office fees for visa applications and renewals, and a minimum income requirement for UK residents who wish to bring their spouse or partner to join them. These measures penalize migrants from the Global South.

The ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF) condition has been expanded, preventing people with precarious immigration status from accessing many public services and mainstream welfare support. More than 1.3 million people in the UK are estimated to be subject to NRPF. Racially minoritized mothers and children are particularly affected. More than 220,000 children are believed to have NRPF because of their visa status.

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Migration: it will be up to the next generation to change the picture

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 8 May 2017

Kathryn Riley. 
There is a photograph called ‘Migrant Mother’. It is an arresting black and white shot. The woman is centre stage and gazes sideways on. She is beyond exhaustion: every line etched in her face tells its own story.
701px-Migrant_Mother_(LOC_fsa.8b29516).jpg
At first glance, she appears to have two children. Look more closely and you will see she has three: a child asleep on her lap and two other children, faces averted from (more…)

Ten sure ways countries can turn away international students

By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 14 October 2015

Simon Marginson.
The pursuit of global mobility in a world divided up into nations invokes a fundamental dilemma. Free passage without harassment is a right we routinely expect to exercise whenever we travel abroad. Yet the right of people within a country to determine who enters their nation is enshrined in law. This unresolvable tension between sovereignty and mobility catches international students in its grip.
More than 4.5m students cross borders every year for educational purposes, mostly entering English-speaking countries, Western Europe, China, Japan and Russia. The great majority of these students return home when their education ends, though some become skilled migrants to the country of education, or other countries. Nations compete for international students – every country wants high-quality research students (more…)