Photo credit: the Guardian
Organizations and community groups will be able to sponsor thousands of asylum seekers to Britain under a new scheme unveiled by Shabana Mahmood.
Daily Mail reports that the Home Secretary is pressing ahead with plans to create new “safe and legal routes” for refugees. The plan was first floated in December.
In what will be seen as a sop to the Left of the Labour party, Ms Mahmood is prioritizing a scheme which will see community organizations sign up to house and support refugees, and find them jobs.
It will be based on a Canadian model and the UK’s Home for Ukraine scheme, which has taken 270,000 Ukrainians to Britain since the start of the war in 2022.
The new program is expected to be open to asylum seekers from conflict zones around the world, with the United Nations refugee agency helping to determine who should go to Britain.
Separately, universities will be able to directly sponsor refugees to Britain as students from autumn next year.
Ms Mahmood also revealed changes to human rights laws will be included in a new immigration Bill, to be published next week.
The new law will tighten the definition of “family” for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights ((ECHR), restricting it to immediate family members only.
However, critics of the asylum system have focused on Article 8 of the ECHR, saying it has been used to frustrate the deportation of people with no right to be in the UK.
