22 May 2025, 10:45 | Updated: 22 May 2025, 16:52

By Nishta Mauree

I have been living and working in the UK for more than a decade.

I feel betrayed by Labour’s proposed immigration policies - and a duty to speak up for those who can’t.

Last week, the Government published its Immigration White Paper. One of its discriminatory new proposals is to double the amount of time tens of thousands of people need to wait before they can apply for permanent residency from 5 years to 10 years. I have already been through the 10 year route to settlement and I can tell you that 10 years of limbo is not immigration policy. It is a prison sentence.

Coming here was not my choice. I arrived in the UK as a survivor of trafficking at 14 years old. Scared and alone, I taught myself English by watching cartoons on YouTube. Slowly, I started to build a life here. But the system I was placed in did everything it could to deny me the chance to flourish.

The 10-year route is a path to Indefinite Leave to Remain, or permanent residency, which allows a person to live and work in the country without time restrictions. The reality of those 10 years is an unbearable treadmill of uncertainty, debt, trauma, and lost time. You have to make four applications to the Home Office over a decade of waiting, each time not knowing if your application for another two and half years of leave will be approved. The financial burden is immense – for one adult, it can cost a total of £25,000 in visa fees and........

© LBC