Shabana Mahmood is set to announce a new legal route for refugees, which will prioritise Afghan women and girls and Palestinians. This move unfreezes a scheme designed to offer vulnerable refugees a faster path to permanent status.
The Home Secretary will state that these changes aim to demonstrate fairness within the immigration system and support the most vulnerable. This marks a shift in Mahmood’s approach following the closure of the Afghan resettlement scheme last year and previous changes that introduced a two-decade review period for refugee status.
Under the reopened scheme, potential refugees will undergo security and criminality checks. Those who arrive through this route will be granted indefinite leave to remain, providing a five-year path to permanent settlement, in contrast to the continuous status review for those arriving via irregular routes.
The Home Office anticipates that approximately one in four arrivals will be Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees. Numbers are expected to start in the hundreds and grow to the low thousands as illegal migration levels decrease, with an annual cap.
Immigration experts and refugee charities have suggested that the number of eligible individuals will be too small to deter asylum seekers from crossing the Channel in small boats. The Migration Observatory's director, Madeleine Sumption, noted that the impact on unauthorised arrivals is unlikely to be significant.