UNIONS blasted the government’s “racist” immigration plans today, warning that migrants keep vital public services running.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer infamously warned that Britain was becoming an “island of strangers” when the proposals were announced in a white paper in May.

The plans will end overseas recruitment to the NHS and social care for any role below graduate level, double the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain work visas and reshape and limit immigration for purposes of employment, delegates warned at the TUC conference in Brighton.

The motion moved by Unison, which represents care workers, warned that “short-term, rights-restricted schemes risks creating super-exploitation of precarious groups of migrant workers.

“Migrant workers have kept vital services running.”

Unions unanimously opposed any moves to retrospectively extend the qualifying period for indefinite leave to remain from five to 10 years, warning: “This would breach trust and leave workers trapped in exploitation for another five years, rendering them second-class citizens in the UK for longer.”

The motion warned that the current framework has already led to unjust deportation of workers — many of whom are black and from marginalised communities — “simply because their earnings fall below arbitrary thresholds.”

Seconding the motion, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) president Martin Cavanagh, who told of overseas members being “frogmarched” out of their offices in the Department for Work and Pensions, said: “This is racism, it’s xenophobic.

“The only crime that any of these workers have committed is being on poverty pay.”

Delegates called for the repeal of the “existing legislation, with an immediate replacement developed in full consultation with the TUC and including robust protections for all current visa holders, particularly those already contributing to public service.”