UK opens refugee sponsorship routes while tightening deportation laws

The Home Office has vowed to introduce new ‘capped safe and legal’ routes for refugees to come to the UK from later this year.

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The department said it would allow organisations like universities, community groups and businesses to sponsor refugees who applied to come to the UK, a model based on Canada’s asylum system.

The government also said it would press ahead with changes to how human rights and modern slavery laws are applied to asylum applications to root out what it described as ‘vexatious’ claims.

The Conservatives said no extra people should be let into the country until illegal immigration was stopped while Reform UK said it would reverse the scheme if elected to government.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said the new system would protect ‘genuine refugees’ while ‘closing loopholes that have been too often abused’.

‘Britain has always offered sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution,’ she said.

‘But this system only survives if the public trusts that it is fair, controlled, and not open to abuse.’