Reunite Families UK and Councillors criticise divisive visa fees increases

Reunite Families UK, together with the Migrant Champions Network has organised a letter, which will be sent to the Home Secretary, in which Councillors of all political affiliations across the country can signal their strong opposition to the extremely high visa fees increases which were announced earlier in the summer with some of them due to be implemented from the 4^th of October 2023. 

The letter strongly criticises the government’s assertion that the visa fee increase will be used to fund a much-deserved public sector pay increase as unnecessarily divisive and disingenuous, especially given that migrants are overrepresented in many of the frontline sectors that have been fighting for more pay.

The letter follows another one in which migrant communities, frontline migrants’ rights NGOs and some of the UK’s biggest labour unions, including the GMB and the British Medical Association call for a change of course given the dire consequences it will represent for countless people who would lose the right and ability to exist safely in the place they call home.

We urge our supporters to ask their local councilors to sign the letter and share it with colleagues across the Council and neighbouring authorities as we believe that the highly deserved public sector pay increase shouldn’t be paid by our friends, neighbours who deserved to be able to afford to live in the place they call home.