Make threatening deportation to coerce women a crime, says watchdog

Immigration abuse should be recognised as an official form of domestic violence by the Government, says a watchdog, after uncovering evidence of men using fear of deportation to coerce women.

Nicole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner, said research she commissioned had found widespread evidence of men using victims’ insecure immigration status to threaten that they will be deported if they report the violence to the police.

The researchers from University of Suffolk and Angelou Centre found multiple methods being used by abusers to control their partners, including deliberately bringing a person into the UK with an incorrect visa to ensure they remained vulnerable to immigration enforcement.

They also uncovered cases of immigration abuses including passports being withheld so that victims were unable to find out what rights they might have.

In other cases, an abusive partner deliberately mismanaged a victim’s immigration status and application so that they overstayed their visas, leaving them effectively living in the UK without a valid status.

Safety for all victims

Ms Jacobs said “immigration abuse” should be included in the national definition of domestic abuse, which was most recently extended to economic abuse where a partner uses the family’s finances to control a victim.

She said the Government should create a legal “firewall” so that an immigrant victim could report domestic violence without being threatened with deportation and funding pathways to help them escape the abuse.

Ms Jacobs said: “No victim should ever be left behind. It’s time we ensured that safety was the focus for all victims, regardless of their immigration status.”

One woman told researchers: “I told him and his family I wanted to leave, and they told me if I did, I would starve because of my immigration status. That I have no rights in the UK. He kept throwing my card [visa] at me and telling me to read what it says at the back, that I can’t get support.”

Ms Jacobs called for £18.7 million to be made available to local authorities in the Autumn Spending Review on October 27 over a three-year period so victims could be given shelter in a refuge.