Refugees already granted asylum and living in Britain could be deported as a result of the Government’s migration shake-up.
Shabana Mahmood’s move to make refugee status temporary will apply retrospectively to those already granted asylum in the UK, The i Paper has learned.
It means that if a refugee has not already been granted indefinite right to remain before the Home Secretary’s new legislation comes into effect, they will be made to return if their home country is subsequently deemed safe by the Government.One of the most radical aspects of Mahmood’s asylum reform package is the plan to review a refugee’s status every 30 months.
Under the new “core protection” offer, if conditions in their home country improve and are judged by the UK Government to be safe, they will be asked to return and could be forcibly deported if they refuse.
Currently, refugees can apply for permanent settlement after five years, but under the new system they will only be able to do so after 20 years.
The i Paper has learned that the changes will apply retrospectively to refugees in the country who have not reached the five-year mark when the legislation comes in.
Under the new rules, if a refugee is already in the country and has been grated five years of leave, the Home Office will not shorten their current leave.
However, at the end of the five years, the Government will review if their country is safe, and return the migrant if it is.
If their country is not deemed safe, the migrant will not receive automatic lifetime settlement but will move to the Home Office’s new model.
They will get 30 months more leave to remain before their next review, with lifetime settlement only available 20 years after their arrival.
If a refugee moves into the new “work and study” visa route which the Government is planning, they will potentially be able to “earn” permanent settlement at an earlier date.
The i Paper also understands that until the legislation is brought forward, permanent settlement will continue on the current five-year model.
Applying the rules retrospectively to refugees already in the country is likely to be highly controversial among Labour MPs.
Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central, told The i Paper she was “concerned if the terms that people are already on change”.
The Government is also likely to face legal challenges related to countries being designated safe.
In 2023, the Conservative government’s Rwanda deportation scheme was dealt a huge blow when the Supreme Court ruled that it was not a safe country.
The judgment forced Rishi Sunak to pass an act declaring Rwanda safe, though the scheme was later scrapped by Sir Keir Starmer’s Government before it could get off the ground.
The concerns about the retrospective nature of Mahmood’s changes come amid a wider Labour backlash against the asylum reforms.
On Tuesday, the Labour peer and former child refugee, Lord Dubbs, told The i Paper that making refugee status temporary would damage integration and lead to community tensions.
Dubs, who fled the Nazis to the UK on the Kindertransport in the 1930s, said the Home Secretary’s plan to make refugee status temporary was “pretty depressing” and “so hardline without any compassion”.
He said: “I’m particularly concerned about what’s going to happen in local communities, with what we’d call integration normally.
“If people are here and are known to be here only temporarily while the Government rethinks their position then I think local communities are going to be less supportive and asylum seekers are going to be in a more difficult position as they won’t have a network of support, which is something they normally have.”
Dubbs also said that Labour politicians were “uneasy” about plans to deport the children of failed asylum seekers.
On Monday, Mahmood told MPs that there were over 700 Albanian families whose asylum claims had failed but who remained in the country, despite Albania being a safe country with which the UK has a returns deal.
“The only reason they have not been removed from the country is the policies on not removing families—that is, parents with their children,” she said.
At a press conference on Tuesday, the leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, refused to say whether he supported this part of Mahmood’s package.
Asked by The i Paper whether he backed plans to deport children, Farage said: “The absolute priority for deporting those who come illegally, are young, undocumented males of fighting age, many of whom will do great harm in this country, to women, to girls, join crime gangs.”
In August, Reform appeared to backtrack on their own policy to deport the children of illegal migrants.
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Initially, the party said it would remove unaccompanied minors in the “latter half” of their proposed five-year mass deportation scheme.
However, Farage later said that the treatment of children was a “complicated and difficult issue” and that Reform was “not even discussing women and children at this stage”.
His refusal to support the idea means that as things stand, Labour appears to have a tougher stance than Reform when it comes to the removal of children.
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