On 17 November 2025 Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced new plans that would create more difficulties for people seeking safety in the UK. These proposals are explained in the Government paper Restoring Order and Control. As with many previous Home Secretary announcements, these plans focus on enforcement rather than addressing the real reasons people seek protection or the basic reality that migration is a normal part of life. The Government paper turns a very complex situation into something that looks simple in a way that suits its political aims, and deliberately hides the real human experiences, stories, barriers, and systemic problems that people face every day. These are issues that as a community we have been raising again and again, while campaigning for alternatives rooted in humanity, compassion, care, and the reality on the ground – not for political gain, to reinforce harmful and completely inaccurate far-right narratives that put all our communities at risk, or for private companies to profit from human suffering.
This blog focuses on what the Government wants to change, what this could mean in practice, and how people and communities can stay informed and prepared. These are proposals which means they are ideas and not law.
We’ve highlighted the changes that could have the biggest impact on people currently living through the asylum and immigration system. There is still a lot we don’t know, including when any changes might start, who they will apply to, and whether they will affect people already in the UK, such as those waiting for a decision or already recognised as refugees. It’s also unclear how these proposals will apply to children, including unaccompanied young people and families.
Some of these plans may never happen, or they may change in Parliament or be challenged in court. But it is still important to understand what the Government is suggesting and what it might mean. Knowledge is power. When we share knowledge, we help each other stay steady, ask the right questions, and prepare together.
Our friends at Greater Manchester Immigration Advice Unit have published a helpful overview of what the Government has announced and the potential impact on the community, which you can read here. Migrants Organise have also written this blog highlighting how the UK’s proposed immigration policies echo Denmark’s flawed model and why this new copy-cat approach is likely to fail.
| Current System | The government’s suggested plan (not the law) |
|---|---|
| Staying in the UK | |
| You are given 5 years leave to remain as a Refugee after the Government accepts your claim for protection. You often wait many years for a decision on your asylum claim. | You receive 30 months of leave to remain, called core protection status. After each 30-month period (2.5 years), you apply again for more leave. When you re-apply, the government checks whether they think you still need protection. This means they look at your home country and decide whether they believe it is safe for you to return or still unsafe. |
| After 5 years of Refugee Status, you can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (this is also called ‘settlement’) which gives you the right to live, work, and study in the UK with no time limit. After 1 year, you can apply to become a British Citizen. | You have to live in the UK for 20 years before you can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. There are rules and requirements you have to meet to be able to apply. The government has not decided what these requirements could be yet. |
| After you are granted Refugee status you remain on this route to Indefinite Leave to Remain (and British Citizenship). There is no separate visa inside the UK for refugees who work or study. | You are encouraged to move off core protection if you get a job or start studying. You can apply for a new Protection Work and Study visa inside the UK. You have to pay a fee to switch to this route. On this route, you may be able to get Indefinite Leave to Remain sooner than if you stay on core protection. |
| Family Reunion | |
| If you applied before 3 September 2025 at 3pm, you could use Refugee Family Reunion. This allowed you to apply for your partner and children under 18 to join you in the UK. You do not have to meet the usual income requirement, English language test, or high visa fees used in the normal family visa route. | Under core protection, you do not have an automatic right to family reunion. You may be able to bring your family only if you move to the new Work and Study visa route. You need to meet rules and requirements to apply. The government has not yet confirmed the full rules or who can qualify. |
| Financial support | |
| If you are seeking asylum, the law says the government must give you asylum support. Asylum support is housing and weekly money if you can show evidence that you are destitute, which means you have no money, no place to live, or are about to become homeless. This is a legal duty. | The government only gives asylum support by choice, not because the law says they must. This is a discretionary power, not a legal duty. Your asylum support can be stopped if you have the right to work The government can remove support more easily if you break the law, do not follow support rules, do not follow removal directions, or work without permission. If you have money or valuables you may have to use these to pay towards your support (for example, the government could take jewellery). |
| When you are seeking asylum and waiting for a decision on your case, you do not have access to public funds (benefits). If you are recognised as a refugee, you usually can access public funds (benefits), following the normal rules. | You may only get public funds if you show you are working or contributing economically. You may have to meet extra rules to receive benefits, and take certain actions to keep them. The government has not decided what these rules might be. |
| When you are seeking asylum and waiting for your decision, you normally do not have the right to work.If the Home Office has not made a decision on your case after 1 year (and it is not considered to be your fault), you can apply for permission to work, but if you get it, you are only allowed to do a small list of jobs. These jobs are usually not in common areas like hospitality or shops, and many people cannot access them. The rules are confusing and hard to understand. Because you need money to survive and asylum support is often not enough, many people work even though it is against the law. This work is usually unsafe, low paid, and gives you very few rights or protections. | You face much stronger enforcement against illegal working. Immigration officers carry out more raids than ever before. More companies now have to check if you have the right to work, including delivery apps like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat, and other jobs where you work as self-employed or through an app. These companies use stronger ID checks, and some share information with the Home Office to find people working without permission.You need a digital ID to prove your right to work. |
| Removals from the UK | |
| If your asylum claim is refused, the Government can try to remove you from the UK. Some countries accept returns more easily, so removals happen faster for some nationalities. Families with children usually keep getting support, and enforced removals of families happen less often. The UK does not usually return you to a country that is considered unsafe or where removals have been paused for many years. You are not sent to a “third country” unless there is a specific agreement (for example, the old Rwanda plan, which is not active now). A third country means a country that is not the UK and not your home country, and you may have no connection to it. Many people live in the UK for years while trying different immigration applications. You may build a life here, have a family, and become part of a community while your case continues. | You face a higher risk of removal if you do not have permission to stay. The Government says it wants to remove more people, more quickly. If you arrive by small boat, the UK–France pilot means you can be detained and sent back to France. The Government plans to expand this scheme. The Government plans to restart removals to countries where returns have been paused for many years, including places where people were previously considered unsafe. They say refugee protection is temporary, and if your home country changes, they may try to return you. The Government also plans to increase family removals. They may: – offer money to help you return – start enforced removal if you refuse – remove support from families they believe can leave the UK The Government is also exploring sending you to a third country instead of your home country. This is called a “return hub.” You may have no connection to this country. Negotiations with other countries are ongoing. |
| Appeals | |
| You can appeal if the Home Office refuses your asylum claim. You may wait a long time for your appeal because the courts have a big backlog. Many people wait over a year for their hearing. Appeals happen in the First-tier Tribunal, which is independent from the Home Office. Some people make more than one application or appeal over time, especially if their situation changes or they find new evidence. You stay in the UK while your appeal is waiting to be heard. | You have one appeal. If you lose, you are expected to leave the UK. A new appeals body replaces the current Tribunal. Your appeal can be fast-tracked if the Government says your case has a low chance of success.If you are detained, a “high-harm” case, or a foreign national offender, your appeal is prioritised and heard quickly. If the Government says your claim has “no merit,” you may be removed with no appeal.If you make a late claim, your appeal is very fast, and removal may continue at the same time. If you stay after losing your appeal, any new private or family life you build does not stop removal, except in rare cases. You are offered money to leave the UK and if you refuse, they move to enforced removal. |
| Protection for people who have experienced trafficking and modern slavery | |
| You can be referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) if someone thinks you may be a victim of modern slavery or trafficking. The NRM is the system the Government uses to decide if you are a victim and what support you need. You can give information at any time, even later in your case, and it still has to be looked at. If you get a negative decision, you can sometimes ask for a reconsideration (a second look) before removal. If the Government recognises you as a victim, you may get support, and removal is usually paused while they make decisions about your case. You may wait a very long time for an NRM decision, and many people do not receive leave to remain at the end of the process. | It becomes harder for you to use the NRM to stop removal.You cannot ask for a reconsideration (a second look) if you are being removed to a country that has signed the main European anti-trafficking agreements. You are expected to give information early. If you tell the Home Office late they may say your story is not believable. The Home Office uses stronger screening when you are detained, which means they ask more detailed questions early on and expect you to give all information immediately. Decision makers may say your story is less believable if you give information late, even if you were scared, confused, traumatised, or did not have legal advice at the time. |
| Further Submissions (fresh claims) | |
| If your asylum claim is refused, you can send further submissions when you have new evidence or when your situation changes. You may make further submissions because: – you now have evidence from your home country that you could not get before – you had poor or no legal advice earlier in your case – you have lived in the UK for a long time because of slow Home Office decisions, and you have built a private or family life here – something has changed in your home country You do not pay a fee for further submissions. The Home Office looks at your new information and decides if it is a fresh claim. If it is, you get a new right of appeal. You can make further submissions more than once, as long as you have new evidence or new reasons. Your removal is usually paused while the Home Office looks at what you have sent. | You still send further submissions, but the rules become stricter and faster. You must raise all your reasons for staying in the UK in one appeal. If you send new submissions later, you have to show why they are late and how they are different from your first claim. If you do not engage (for example you do not reply, do not send evidence, or do not take part when the Home Office asks) your new claim is ignored and treated as withdrawn. If you want to stay in the UK after refusal, you apply in the same way as other people on other routes so you pay fees and explain how removal breaks your human rights. |
| Applications made based on human rights | |
| You can use Article 8 (the rule that protects your family life and private life) to ask to stay in the UK if removal harms your relationships, your home, or the life you have built here.You may get leave to remain even if you do not meet the income or English language rules.You can make an Article 8 claim inside the UK, or after refusal, to try to stop removal. You use Article 8 because you: -have a partner or children in the UK – live with close family – have built a private life here – have lived in the UK for many years because of delays in the system | It becomes harder for you to use Article 8 to stay in the UK because of your family life or private life. The government wants to: – Give more weight to “public interest”. For example: immigration control, criminal history, pressure on services. – Limit who counts as family so that is mainly partners and children. – Restrict when and how you can make Article 8 claims, especially late claims made to stop removal. This means it may be more difficult for you to stay in the UK if you rely on family or private life reasons alone. |
| Article 3 protects you from torture or very serious harm. This is an absolute right, which means the Government cannot remove you if you face this danger.You can use Article 3 to stop removal if:you risk torture or serious abuse in your country you have serious health needs that cannot be safely treated in your country you face violence or danger that the authorities cannot protect you from If Article 3 applies, the Home Office must stop your removal. | It becomes more difficult for you to argue that removal is unsafe using Article 3. For example, it becomes harder to use healthcare needs as a reason to stop removal.The government is currently talking to other countries about changing how Article 3 is used in asylum and immigration cases. They want to limit when Article 3 can protect you from removal, even though it is still an absolute right. |
| For children who are under 18 | |
| If you cannot prove you are under 18, you may have an age assessment. These assessments are complex, and many children are wrongly treated as adults. | You may be subject to facial age estimation, which uses AI technology to guess your age from your face. AI age checks may be used instead of, or together with, interviews with social workers. It is easier for the Home Office to say you are an adult, and harder for you to challenge an age decision. Faster decisions mean you may have less time to explain your situation or show evidence that you are under 18. These systems can make mistakes, especially for people from racialised backgrounds, or people affected by trauma, stress, or malnutrition. |
There is still a lot we do not know. Many details will be decided later through consultations, and the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill is in Parliament again this week. As we learn more, we will share updates. What is important to remember now is that these plans are not law. Stand firm with your communities, stay informed, and know that many of us reject the direction the Government has chosen.
We are hosting an online meeting on Wednesday, 26 November, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. During this session, we will hear from people who would be directly affected by these changes and discuss how we can show solidarity with them. We will also share what we currently know about the proposals and invite our partner organisations to do the same.
The Right to Remain Toolkit is here to help you stay informed, prepared, and supported. It is free to use and written for people going through the system, and for those helping others. You can learn about the legal process, understand your options, and find practical steps to take so you and your community can stay grounded, connected, and empowered in the face of uncertainty.
–Ally, Legal Education Officer
Discussion: