Simon Hattenstone reports in the Guardian the story of Sandy (Jing Zhou) who, as many in the similar situation, is caught between the retrospective policy change by the Home Office, and the refusal of her employer to raise her hourly wage from £6.15 to £7.02. Having been working as a senior care worker for four years, she is now facing deportation.

From the Guardian:

Sandy loved her job. Yes, she was paid only £6.15 an hour, yes, it was hard work and required enormous patience, but she was born to care for people. She blushes and says she’s not being boastful, but she knows she was good at it. “People would say, ‘Are you on tonight, Sandy? Are you on tomorrow? Oh brilliant.’ They trust me because I love my work. Some of these people haven’t got family - no children, no family. They trust me, because they know I do this job with my heart.”

After four years in a Southern Cross care home, helping elderly people get on with their lives, Sandy, who is from China, was planning to apply for indefinite leave to remain in Britain. She assumed it would be a foregone conclusion. After all, she was doing vital work, paying her taxes, and her daughter was slap-bang in the middle of A-levels.

But in July this year she received a letter from the Home Office. It stated that senior care workers no longer qualified for work permits. The Home Office had re-assessed the job, decided it was insufficiently skilled to warrant a permit, and that Sandy would have to return to China in October.

Read the full story.

  Digg! del.icio.us