The UK government announced a new plan on December 4 to reduce overall migration by making it harder for people with long-term work visas and for British or settled residents applying to bring their families to live with them. This is to be achieved by doubling the minimum amount people have to be earning before they can be eligible to obtain the necessary visas to £38,700. That’s one of the highest income requirements in the world and more than the annual salary of nearly 70% of British workers in the UK, according to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford.

The new rules are set to take effect in April, 2024, but they are already causing families to fear that they will be denied the possibility of being reunited.

One mixed nationality couple, Rebecca Kaya and her Kurdish husband Baran, had pursued an alternative way of securing a visa, by building up personal savings from Baran's work in the family business in the hospitality trade, Rebecca's online jewellery company and inheritance money from her father.

They told Reuters that they had just put the required £62,500 into a UK bank account, where it would need to be for six months to gain a visa so that they could move as a couple from Icmeler in Turkey to the UK.

It is not clear whether the savings threshold will be increased like the minimum income requirement, but immigration lawyers expect that it will. The Kayas are now afraid that they will not have enough.

Also read: UK: Visa rules tightened as government pledges to get even tougher on immigration

Mental health crisis

Many more families like the Kayas are worrying about what the increase will mean for them, according to Reunite Families UK (RFUK), which supports families affected by the partner visa rules. The organization says it has been inundated with requests for advice since the government's announcement, with many people concerned about the lack of details about the policy and whether it will be applied retrospectively.

As a recent report commissioned by RFUK shows, the existing rules – set to become much harsher – are already having a serious negative impact on families.

According to the report, the current requirements create single parent families, disproportionately affecting mothers, and discriminate generally against women, young people and those outside of London who are more likely to struggle to meet the financial threshold. Financial hardship and lengthy periods of separation caused by the existing rules and fees have led to marriage breakdowns and children losing contact with a parent.

Even more concerning is the impact on children's mental health. According to RFUK, 92% of parents who responded to the survey reported their children suffering from problems such as selective mutism, eating disorders, loss of hope and other behavioral issues as well as self harm and suicidal thoughts.

For Raquel, a British woman married to Manoel from Brazil, these issues are very real. Interviewed for the report, they said their eldest child – who has only seen his father once in the past four years due to the inability of the couple to afford visits on top of meeting the income threshold and visa fees – has been left suffering from separation anxiety and mental trauma.

Another mixed nationality family reported that the marriage broke down and both mother Sally and her now 13-year-old daughter Clara developed mental health problems as a result of the strain caused by the difficulty of meeting the requirements for family reunion in the UK.

RFUK has urged the government to make some of the conditions easier for families to meet – otherwise, it warns of a "devastating" impact on couples and children seeking to be reunited in the future.