Proposed ILR Rules – The Unfair Impact on Working Mothers and the Need for a Full Maternity Exemption

[Zinary]

I am writing this with a newborn in my arms, and my heart is completely breaking.
Instead of being allowed to heal, rest, and soak in the pure joy of my baby, I am sitting here crying, terrified, and questioning if I made the right choice to have a child. How can a mother be driven to question her greatest gift, her absolute world, all because of a cruel change to immigration law?
On 2 November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the finalized "Earned Settlement" rules. To get Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the standard 5 years, you now must earn over £50,271 a year.
But the absolute malice is in the fine print: you must meet that £50,271 threshold in three out of the last five years before you apply.
The Home Office is actively spinning this "3 out of 5 years" rule as a generous maternity "buffer." They are telling the public it gives women two years of leeway to have a baby.
Let me tell you why that math is a blatant, calculated lie for real women:

1. The Starting Trap: Many of us spent our first two years in the UK working up from entry-level salaries, earning below that £50k mark. Our two "buffer years" are ALREADY GONE. We have zero margin for error left.
2. The Maternity Penalty: Pregnancy is nine months of physical toll, followed by maternity leave and statutory pay dips. If your annual P60 earnings drop below £50,271 because you lose out on bonuses, commission, or overtime while caring for your baby, your year doesn't count. The clock resets.
3. The Multi-Child Ban: If you want to have two children within five years, it is mathematically impossible to hit that threshold for three consecutive years.

If the math fails you because you chose to have a baby, you are forced onto the 10-year path. The punishment? Paying thousands of pounds more in upfront Immigration Health Surcharges (IHS) and visa extensions just to keep your home. For a family, we are talking about an extra £35,000+ extracted by the Home Office. This is evil. It is a pay-to-settle hierarchy that penalizes the female body and treats human lives like a spreadsheet. The right to live and build a family must NEVER be a hard choice. The Home Office is laying these rules before Parliament next month (December) to take effect in 2027. We have a tiny, critical window to fight this. I am calling on every mother, every ally, and anyone who believes that a woman shouldn't be penalized for having a child to help us.

• If you are an immigration lawyer: How do we launch a class-action challenge against this under the Equality Act?
• If you have links to journalists or MPs: Please help us get this cruel math into the mainstream media. Backbench Labour MPs forced a U-turn on care workers last week—we can force a U-turn on mothers if we make enough noise.
• If you are a British citizen: Will you write to your MP on behalf of your migrant friends and colleagues who have no voice in the ballot box?

Please bump this, share this, and tell me what we can do. I refuse to let a spreadsheet dictate whether it was a "mistake" to hold my beautiful baby.

You get credited at your full salary for a time you are not contributing? Not a simpe fix at all but a way to encourage peole to fiddle the system.

Both can meet it. They just have to plan parental leave around it.

Can you hear yourself?

OP has only just had her child.

in any case if you decide to have a child when you don’t have ILR, then that is the risk you take

Youre Just confirming what I said earlier.
You have no care at all about the Brits who get married to a non brit (in the U.K. or abroad. It doesn’t matter where they met). Or for the for the british children born in the U.K.
All Of who are told - tough. Just go away or separate. You knew what you were getting into getting married with a foreigner.

And I’m not joking btw. The HO has said before than weekly video calls with a mother were sufficient and ok for children of the mother can’t stay in the U.K.
Obviously, they think the reverse is true too - a weekly video calls with is totally s adequate to parent and be a father.

Ha ha! I'm sure you think you've told 'em all what's what!

Juvenile crap. It isn't in a "terrible state" where I am

Don't your wonderful DH and now lovely children want to move back to your "own country". It's an option surely

I wondered the same. It's a remarkably detailed and well thought out post considering the rules were just announced yesterday, the OP has a brand new baby attached to her and she's simultaneously in that well known MN state of crying and shaking in shock at something. Yet she's already rallying for 'allies' to write to their MPs and help her start a class action.

That's a lot to be doing all at once, isn't it?

I don’t earn over £50k. I was born here. Guess I shouldn’t have been allowed to have kids either? My dad was an immigrant so it’s the next logical step.
just been reading the un declaration of the rights of the child with my kids for a brownies badge.
My own parents were a holiday fling. They had to pick a country to settle in or give up their relationship. Luckily they were able to do that.

But you've also claimed to be renting AND paying a mortgage...

You'll forgive us for being a tad cynical here.

Sigh….

I hope you tell your story to someone who is terminally ill. And they can say :

"Your situation is nowhere as traumatic. No sympathy"

I'd love to hear the other person's side of the story.

You can't compare the rights of people born here to those that rock up having paid in nothing. Countries need to have a mechanism to decide who we do and don't want living here otherwise it would be chaos.

Presumably because it would impact soaking up the joy of her baby. She doesn't seem willing to acknowledge that most women simply aren't in a position to take a year of maternity leave.

I want those with ILR gone. Starting with those that have made fraudulent applications, have committed a crime or are on benefits.

you do sound very entitled OP but I'd like to know what you mean by "real" women?

"Let me tell you why that math is a blatant, calculated lie for real women:"

PS if you've been here so long why are you not aware that the word is "maths"?

PS another niggle...you bear a child, not bare (unless you are taking child's clothes off)

I was gonna say.... slagging off the NHS because you 'go private' completely ignores the fact that private healthcare doesn't include emergency medicine.

In regards to the OP; my personal view is that having children is very much a choice and you cut your cloth accordingly - irrespective of where you live, what your income is, whether you're a single parent, own a property/rent, work or not etc etc etc. The myriad of personal situations cannot be catered for by any laws.

I don't understand why anyone would expect any country's incumbent administration to do the best or fair thing for them personally - even if, when they moved to the country in question, the rules seemed clear. Legislation changes constantly. That's life, nothing's set in stone.

I think many people might benefit from a little more stoicism in the face of (apparent) adversity.

Who would you deport after that then?

How does it work for the spouses/girlfriends of the highest earners/talent programme? Do the talented taxpayers get put on 3 years but their spouses on 10 to get the leave?

If people want to live in another country then they have to do so according to the rules that country has.

That applies across the world.

If you choose to have your child before you are legally given ILR then you have to accept the rules might change. This would be the same regardless of where you live.

If two people from different countries meet and want to marry or have kids then they need to consider how it will work before doing so

You are one person. Do you think everyone who came here with the intention of staying earned above the threshold, paid full rent, contributed more than received as you did?
It was your choice to have a child knowing how that would affect your income.

Exactly - just like every other woman who wants to have a baby.

Some of the words the OP used are ridiculously emotive.

It's a mortgage now apparently. Within a couple of hours.

Extra congratulations, OP!

British people aren't all white.