Immigration abuse is when a perpetrator uses an individual’s insecure immigration status to control, threaten, or isolate them, often exploiting their fear of deportation or their inability to access public funds, housing, or support services. It’s usually part of a wider pattern of coercive control and gender-based abuse, not a standalone behaviour.

It persists because perpetrators know how to exploit legal loopholes, victims are often financially and legally dependent on them, public services and individuals lack awareness and identification tools, and fear of enforcement discourages victims from reporting.

There’s growing support for recognising immigration abuse as its own category, as opposed to being absorbed into existing categories like psychological or economic abuse, because it’s a uniquely powerful form of coercion not fully captured by existing abuse categories. The Domestic Abuse (Scotland) Act 2018 already covers behaviour that makes a victim “dependent on, or subordinate to” an abuser and isolates them from support; immigration abuse does both, by giving the abuser control over the victim’s legal right to remain, work, and access public funds.

The Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s 2021 “Safety Before Status” report provides the most holistic and detailed writing on the topic. It presents the definition that we adopt in our own work:

“a form of perpetration that uses the ‘insecure’, ‘uncertain’ or ‘unknown’ immigration status of an individual (or their dependents) to threaten, coerce, exploit and/or subjugate them (or their dependents) as part of a pattern of control and/or abuse and violence.”

Alongside the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, the Scottish Law Commission has recognised it as a distinct form of abuse and adopted the definition presented in the 2021 report.

The most important thing an individual can do if they are experiencing immigration abuse is report it to the Police and an immigration solicitor.

If you do not know where to start when trying to find a solicitor, you can visit our I am looking for legal support page.

Withholding documents: passports, e-Visas, biometric residence permits, or the devices they’re stored on (phones, laptops, tablets)

Threats to status: cancelling a spouse visa, reporting the victim to immigration enforcement or police, or withdrawing sponsorship to force deportation

Blocking legal processes: refusing to support or actively obstructing a visa or status application where the abuser is the sponsor

Transnational marriage abandonment: deliberately stranding a visa-dependent spouse overseas without resources, so they can’t assert their rights in the UK

Immigration abuse persists partly because it’s hard to spot: perpetrators know how to exploit legal and systemic loopholes, victims are often financially and legally dependent on them, and there’s a lack of awareness, training, and identification tools among frontline services.

Additionally, there is a pervasive fear of immigration enforcement that can discourage victims from reporting their abuse in the first place, creating a cycle that keeps the abuse hidden; one that was largely designed by the state through its hostile environment policies and one, by extension that they cannot feign ignorance about.

Where a victim’s immigration status depends on the relationship, the abuser holds a form of power most partners never have: the victim’s ability to stay in the country, work, or study is tied directly to the relationship continuing. This creates a dependency that goes beyond the emotional and into the legal and practical too, since the abuser can control or threaten the victim’s right to remain, work, and access support.

The threat alone, of a dependent’s link to the main visa applicant being withdrawn, becomes a powerful tool of coercive control in its own right. It makes migrant survivors uniquely vulnerable (in a way that those with secure immigration status will never face), as the abuser’s reach extends beyond the relationship itself and defines the survivors’ ability not just to seek support but to stay in the UK legally.

This dynamic also shapes how survivors are treated when they do try to get help. A key marker of immigration abuse is that victims often can’t explain their status or produce documentation to prove it, many, due to a lack of knowledge and/or options turn survivors away, treating missing paperwork as evidence someone is undocumented and turning them away from support and not as a strong piece of evidence that an individual is facing a campaign of coercive control. That’s a serious obstacle in practice, particularly with statutory services that demand a high bar of documentary evidence before they’ll help.

This leaves survivors exposed to a wide range of harms: isolation from support networks, destitution and homelessness, financial abuse, vulnerability to exploitation, fear of seeking help due to deportation threats, and worsening mental health, including trauma and suicidal ideation.

Survivors are often reluctant to approach state services, fearing it will jeopardise their immigration status, a fear the abuser has frequently instilled, even when untrue. Research from the Latin American Women’s Rights Service found fear of deportation was the biggest barrier to survivors coming forward, alongside language barriers and not knowing where to turn. Southall Black Sisters has also documented cases where police question migrant victims about their immigration status before treating them as victims, a pattern that discourages reporting and needs to change.

This can be addressed in two ways.

First by increasing street-level knowledge of the UK’s immigration system and migrants’ rights and entitlements. Through a greater knowledge of both threats of immigration abuse, which previously acted on a lack of knowledge, should fall on deaf ears. If you are interested in upskilling your knowledge in this field, our training is one of many good options. This is not necessarily a panacea but is certainly a prerequisite for reducing the prevalence of abuse. 

Secondly by the Home Office and other state bodies abandoning the logic of the hostile environment and making these limbs of the state more welcoming and compassionate; firewalls between services which forbids the sharing of data between for example the police and the NHS as pushed for by the Domestic Abuse Commissioner, who stated in 2024: “a firewall is absolutely necessary to enable victims with insecure immigration status to safely report what has happened to them” is potentially a step in the right direction.

If you already have the knowledge and are looking to use it, please consider getting in touch to join our dedicated subgroup. More information about the group can be found on our NRPF and Gender-Based Abuse page.