Under the Home Office’s hostile environment, surviving coronavirus is a luxury reserved for UK citizens

‘Illegal’ migrants are working informally to get by, exposing themselves to the dangers many of us have been lucky enough to be shielded from precisely because of government support

As the government’s measures to tackle the coronavirus pandemic continue to roll out, it makes sense that people have welcomed the announcement by chancellor Rishi Sunak to support businesses with loans and to pay statutory sick pay. Look a little closer, however, and questions remain for those earning too little to be eligible for sick pay and for the self-employed, who are not entitled to it. One of the main issues being the concern that people who should self-isolate will not do so for fear they will not be able to afford to feed their families.

Though Boris Johnson has referred to helping “British citizens”, nothing has been said of a crucial group in the population – working immigrants. Hundreds of thousands of workers and families present in the UK are on time-limited visas, permitted to work but with no recourse to public funds, and may find themselves denied sick pay. Many are working in essential services like the NHS, social care and child care, as well as in hospitality and food processing.

If these people stop work in order to self-isolate, they will be unable to claim any benefits without a complicated application to the Home Office, which could take months. From a public health perspective, the Home Office should assure workers and families that they, as equal contributors to society, must be protected and supported through our crisis.

This could be done by instructing relevant authorities that for the next six months (to allow the virus to pass) the “no recourse to public funds” requirement is not to be applied, giving people access to sick-pay and means to support their families that they were previously denied.

The Home Office deals with 25,000 immigration applications every month. Given the complexity of immigration law, many people need legal advice before renewing visas, but many legal practices and advice centres are now closing to new clients.

Applicants are also required to visit specified Home Office appointment centres to apply for biometric permits, despite some centres having announced closure due to Covid-19.

The Home Office should announce that all visas be extended by six months, as opposed to just five weeks, as announced on Tuesday, to avoid applicants missing deadlines or making incomplete applications and thus becoming “illegal” because of the public health emergency.

There are many immigrants with an arguable case for regularisation even under the present immigration rules, but cannot now be reasonably expected to apply, as they’re unable to obtain legal advice or attend the requisite Home Office appointments. Immigrants with no visa who are required to “report” regularly to the Home Office are now being advised by text message not to, but the Home Office admits that it does not have contact details for everyone. The Home Office should announce the suspension of such immigration enforcement activity.

Many “illegal” migrants are working informally to get by, and it is clearly impracticable now to suggest that they should just “go home”. For public health reasons the Home Office should provide support even to those unlawfully present, to ensure they will not spread the virus just through trying to survive economically and to give people a fair chance of living comfortably as the nation adjusts to this lockdown.

Sheona York is a Reader in Law and a solicitor in the Kent Law Clinic