Children as young as five who are living legally in the UK are being told by the Home Office they must leave the country even if their parents have been given permission to remain.

The Guardian has seen five letters sent to children by the Home Office telling them they must leave the UK. A sixth letter has been sent to a woman who is six months pregnant and lives in the UK with her husband, telling her she must leave him and return to her country. The children have parents on care worker visas, which until March 2024 had allowed them to bring partners or children with them to the UK.

“We are completely shocked by the family receiving these letters,” said Varuni Arachchige, a care worker based in Perth, Scotland with her husband, who works in a factory. Their two children, aged eight and five, are thriving at school and settled in their community.

Arachchige has a degree in chemistry and a postgraduate qualification in analytical chemistry from the family’s home country, Sri Lanka, and an MSc from the University of Dundee in sustainability and water security.

Her husband is a graduate in physical science and double maths. He and their children are dependants on her care worker visa. The family paid the Home Office thousands of pounds for their visa applications, pay taxes and do not claim any benefits.

The government began to clamp down on family visas for care workers after the Home Office estimated in 2023 that about 120,000 family members were in the UK, joining 100,000 care worker applicants. From March 2024, care workers have no longer been allowed to bring their partners or children with them to the UK, and a ban on overseas recruitment of care workers was introduced from July 2025.

However, the children who were sent letters in recent weeks arrived in the UK before the various bans and restrictions came into force. “We have been living legally in the UK since we arrived here on Christmas Day in 2022,” said Arachchige. “My visa has been extended by the Home Office until 2031. But my husband and children who are my dependants have been told to leave the country.”

Lawyers said they had seen a rise in these sorts of cases in the past few weeks.

Two recent surveys of migrant care workers revealed that new proposals to extend the period before they can settle in the UK – from five years to a baseline of 15 years – could lead to a mass exodus of this group of workers.

Tulia Group CIC, which provides support and legal advice to migrants, surveyed 269 migrant care workers, who all said the settlement route should remain five years. Only 36% said they would remain here with longer settlement rules. In a separate survey of 1,162 migrant care workers by the health and social care platform Lifted, 69% said they would consider leaving the UK if the 15-year rule comes into force. The current workforce of sponsored migrant carers provides 4.2m hours of care a week for up to 280,000 people, much of which could be lost if the new rules prompt an exodus.

Rasika Samarasinghe, a care worker who arrived in the UK in October 2022 and obtained a master’s at Northumbria University in business management, has received a Home Office refusal to allow his dependants on his visa – his wife, who works as a teaching assistant and their three young children aged 12, nine and eight – to stay in the UK.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “We have done everything legally in this country and we have paid every single tax the Home Office has asked us to pay. I’m not an overstayer, I just want a better future for my children. My focus is on family. I can’t do anything without my family. Both my wife and I work very hard here. We are so confused by what has happened to us. We haven’t told the children yet. My children are all settled and doing well at school. The youngest only speaks and writes English.”

Naga Kandiah of MTC Solicitors said: “Migrant care workers in the UK are being placed in an impossible position: [to not] continue essential work or risk being separated from their children or partners. The result is an unfair choice between vital jobs in the social care system and long periods of separation from family. These workers care for vulnerable people, yet the rules can prevent them from caring for their own families.”

Fizza Qureshi, the chief executive of Migrants’ Rights Network, condemned the “go home” instruction to children. “Migrant care workers continually bear the brunt of this government’s disdain for migrants. Nobody should be forced into a decision to either leave their livelihood or be separated from their families. The government really needs to grow a heart and treat migrant workers who are the foundations of our health and care systems, with more respect.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We will always welcome those who contribute to this country and wish to build a better life here. But we must restore order and control to our borders.

“We have set out plans for the biggest legal migration reforms in a generation, addressing the challenges caused by unprecedented levels of migration under the previous government. It is a privilege, not a right, to settle in the UK and it must be earned, rewarding contribution and those who play by the rules.”