‘I live in a care home after three strokes – new visa rules mean I’ll be in my 80s before I’ll know if I can stay in UK’

Some foreign nationals face up to 30 years in visa limbo under Shabana Mahmood’s changes to settlement
Unable to speak due to the onset of a stroke, a passer-by called an ambulance for Mr Adebisi, and he was rushed to hospital.

While he was being treated at University College London Hospital, staff realised that Mr Adebisi, a Nigerian national, was an immigrant who had been living and working undocumented in the UK for nearly 20 years.

Since that day in 2023, Mr Adebisi, 56, has been granted a temporary UK visa on private life grounds, because of the two decades he has already spent living here, but he has been refused permanent residency.

Now, under new rules set to be brought in by Shabana Mahmood, he faces an agonising 30-year wait to find out if he can remain here indefinitely – by which time, he will be in his mid-80s.

Care workers warn that due to his impairments, which mean he needs support for basic activities such as remembering to take medication, and cannot go outside without help, the risk of his failing to apply on time is very high.

Mr Adebisi told The Independent : “I am worried about it.

I am putting my trust in God; he is the only hope I have.”
Under the changes, Ms Mahmood has pledged to increase the length of time that foreign nationals must live in the UK before they can apply for permanent settlement.

The “baseline” qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain has increased to 10 years, but this rises to 20 years if the person has claimed benefits, and 30 years if the person first entered the UK illegally, like Mr Adebisi, who came via ferry from Belgium in 2006.

Roughly 2.2 million people with temporary visas at the end of 2024 were on a path to settlement, according to analysis by the Migration Observatory, though some will leave without applying to stay permanently.

In a speech earlier this year, Ms Mahmood said it was “essential that the privilege of living in this country forever is earned, and not automatic”, adding that the changes were “not a betrayal of Labour values” but rather “an embodiment of them”.

Louisa Thomas, rough sleeping casework manager at migrant’s rights charity Refugee and Migrant Justice, who helped Mr Adebisi with his initial application, warned: “For people who are older or seriously unwell, forcing them to spend 20 or even 30 years renewing their immigration status is not just unrealistic, it is cruel and self-defeating.

“We routinely see people with clear care needs, backed by medical evidence and local authority support, still being denied settlement and pushed into complex visa renewal cycles they cannot even hope to manage.

It is hard to see who benefits from this approach.”
“Up to today, God has been keeping me.

The people in the church call me from time to time.

I have two children, one in Romania and one in America.

I don’t have anyone else who could look after me.”
She also faces having to continually renew her visa every 30 months despite medical evidence and testimony from social workers that she cannot manage tasks on her own, the charity said.

“As part of the earned settlement consultation, we have asked how flexibility or safeguards could be built in to protect vulnerable groups.”