‘Skype families’: The impact on children of the UK’s Family Migration Rules

On 9 September 2015, the Office of the Children’s Commissioner for England (OCC) published ‘Family Friendly?‘, a report into the effects of immigration rules introduced in July 2012 which stipulate that British citizens or residents who want to be joined by their non-EU partner must now earn a minimum of £18,600 per year to sponsor their partner’s entry into the UK.

Attending the launch were two members of the paper’s research team, Associate Professor of Law Dr Helena Wray and her Middlesex colleague, Co-Director of the Social Policy Research Centre Eleonore Kofman. After the event they outlined the team’s findings – one of which is that many children are now living in ‘Skype families’ forced to communicate via webcam – and called on the government to make its rules more flexible in order to meet its child welfare obligations.

Read more at mdx.ac.uk.

Eleonore Kofman explores these issues and more in her teaching for the new MA Migration, Society and Policy master’s degree at Middlesex.