Last week, the Home Office made some announcements for upcoming changes to immigration and asylum system. In this blog, we explain two of these important announcements and what we know about them so far:
The Home Office has ended the ‘one-in-one-out’ policy
In July 2025, the Home Office announced a new ‘one-in-one-out’ policy, aimed at adults arriving in the UK from France by small boats. The policy meant that the UK could send people who had claimed asylum in France back to France instead of deciding their claims in the UK. In exchange, people in France could apply to be brought to the UK and claim asylum. In this way, the policy acted as an exchange between France and the UK.
The Home Office have now announced that the policy has been scrapped and will end this week. It says that it is scrapping the policy because it was not able to return the number of people it wanted to. Media reports say that France wanted to end the deal because it wanted other European countries to be involved in the policy, instead of it being just between the UK and France.
What does this mean for me?
The Home Office Guidance for the policy has already been updated to say that it is closed. This means that no new applications to travel to the UK to claim asylum from France can be made under the policy.
If you arrive in the UK from France after 8th October 2026 by small boat and claim asylum, your case will be considered under the standard asylum process.
We do not know what will happen to the applications that were already made or what will happen to people who have been told that they will be removed to France under the policy.
If you have applied to travel to the UK from France under the policy and have not received any decision, the Home Office might tell you that the scheme is closed and your application will be cancelled.
If you have been told that you are being removed to France under the policy, you may still be removed from the UK. It is unclear whether planned removals for people who have been told they will be returned to France will still happen under the policy, or under other rules.
If the Home Office decides not to remove you then it should tell you in writing. This does not automatically mean that your asylum claim will be considered, but the Home Office should explain this in their letter.
The Home Office has announced the ‘UK Resettlement Scheme’ is reopening
We know that a lot of people will be anxious to find out how to apply and how the resettlement scheme will work. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of information to confirm the details at present.
The Home Office says that the UK Resettlement scheme will work in partnership with local authorities, and that referrals will reopen immediately for arrivals to begin before the end of the year. The scheme will be carried out with the UNHCR (the United Nations’ international refugee agency) and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) who will be able to refer refugees through an existing process. There is very little public information about the scheme and how to access it so far.
In addition, the Home Office also announced 3 new routes will be opened in October 2026 which it says will mean that charities, universities and companies will be able to apply to sponsor refugees as hosts. The Home Office says that people coming to the UK on resettlement schemes will be on 5-year-routes to settlement, referencing ‘illegal migration’ and its focus on ‘immigration control’. No further details have been published on how this will work in practice at the time of writing this blog.
With earned settlement plans due to be announced as law in the coming months, we will keep a close eye on further announcements, and share what we know in our legal updates.
How can we prepare ourselves?
With immigration and asylum law changing so often, and so quickly, it is more important than ever to be prepared and organised as communities. The Home Office continues to focus on enforcement, whether this is through the expansion of immigration detention, immigration raids or the single interview process.
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