Key facts
- UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood will announce new legal routes for refugees.
- The new routes will prioritize Afghan women and girls, and Palestinians.
- The scheme aims to provide a faster path to permanent status for vulnerable refugees.
- The Home Office expects about one in four arrivals to be Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees.
- Refugees will undergo security and criminality checks.
- The scheme will start with numbers in the hundreds and grow to the low thousands annually.
UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is set to announce new legal routes for refugees, prioritizing vulnerable Afghan women and girls, and Palestinians. The initiative aims to unfreeze a scheme that will place the most vulnerable refugees on a faster path to permanent status, signaling a shift in the government's approach to asylum seekers.
Mahmood will state that the changes are intended to demonstrate fairness within the immigration system and to "unlock the inherent generosity of this country." The Home Office anticipates that approximately one in four arrivals will be Afghan women and girls or Palestinian refugees, with initial numbers expected to be in the hundreds and potentially growing to the low thousands annually. These refugees will undergo security and criminality checks and will be granted indefinite leave to remain after a five-year period, a more generous route to settlement compared to those arriving through irregular means.
However, immigration experts and refugee charities have expressed concerns that the eligible numbers will be too small to significantly deter asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in small boats. Critics on the right are also expected to raise questions about security checks, particularly following reports of a former Hamas bodyguard being granted asylum and subsequently arrested. The reopened scheme is similar to one previously closed by Labour, and its effectiveness will depend on the scale of numbers allowed entry, according to Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford. She noted that while prioritizing vulnerable refugees has political support, they may face greater challenges in self-sufficiency and the labor market.
In addition to the prioritized route, Mahmood will formally open another scheme announced earlier this year, allowing community sponsors to apply to bring refugees to the UK starting in October. A sponsored work route for refugees, where companies would host them, is expected to open in spring 2027. These sponsors will be responsible for providing accommodation, integration support, and assistance with finding work, aiming to reduce the burden on local authorities. The scheme had stopped taking new referrals in December 2024, and will be reopened immediately with priority given to people with disabilities and vulnerable women and girls. Families will be able to reunite under the scheme, but not extended families due to existing government restrictions.