Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is planning to exempt migrant social care workers from tougher new residency rules requiring them to wait 15 years before they can settle in the UK.
It follows a wave of criticism from her own party including now Housing Secretary Angela Rayner who slammed some of her planned immigration rules as 'unbritish'.
The Prime Minister also this week refused to publicly back her plans when he appeared in his first live television interview.
And trade unions have also lobbied her to water down her planned clampdown because of its possible effect on social care workers.
Ms Mahmood had been expected to extend the legal wait for permanent settlement to up to 15 years after concerns grew about the potentially high numbers eligible for residency.
But it is believed she is likely to revise these rules for low paid legal migrants currently working in social care when she announces her final decision on immigration rules next week in Parliament.
She had drawn up new plans to extend the current wait for permanent settlement from five years to 10 years with some lower paid workers facing longer waits.
Ms Mahmood has faced stiff opposition from within the government as she has attempted to allay concerns over spiralling immigration to the UK, leading to frustration from large sections of the public desperate to see tougher rules.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood pictured arriving at Downing Street to attend the weekly Cabinet meeting last week
The increasing number of people eligible for indefinite leave to remain – which means they can live, work and study here – and crucially apply for benefits – has caused such concern that the government's consultation drew over 200,000 responses.
Migrant workers are believed to make up over a third of care worker roles in the adult social care sector.
Over half a million of them add to the total workforce of 1.59 million – making up 32 per cent of care worker roles, according to latest figures from the Work Rights Centre, a charity which helps migrants.
Of this number, about 430,000 are believed to be non-EU nationals with the rest from the EU.
Angela Rayner, now reinstated as a minister after a period on the backbenches after breaching the ministerial code for failing to pay the correct stamp duty, said they were un-British because they sought to change the rules for people who had come to the UK in good faith.
On Monday, Andy Burnham refused to say he supported the Home Secretary's proposals in their current form, side swerving the question to say, 'we will set out the plan on that quite soon.'
London Mayor Sadiq Khan also joined the calls for Ms Mahmood to water down her reforms this week.
He said that he agreed we needed to make sure that those who came here 'contributed' but said we needed 'compassion as well'.
Meanwhile, it is expected that under the new rules most workers will have to live and work in the UK for ten years before they are eligible for permanent settlement.
However, it is likely that this will be reduced if they have higher incomes or contribute to their community.
The opposition has previously criticised Ms Mahmood for 'caving into pressure' from Angela Rayner and 'her open borders MPs'.
'This is a slap in the face to British taxpayers who will have to subsidise low-skilled, low wage migrants,' a Tory spokesman said last month.
READ MORE: Labour's watered down immigration reforms will be fast-tracked to prevent major backbench rebellion
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