In her new asylum policy statement last November, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood made it clear that she wants to reduce the number of asylum seekers coming to the UK, especially those who arrive in small boats. She writes as if, to her, most asylum seekers, however they get here, are illegal, and she declares that certain acts which are perfectly legal today may, if the government gets its way, be counted as “illegal” tomorrow; asylum seekers, she says, use rights available to them here to “take advantage” of the UK’s generosity, and she wants to stop it. Moreover, even if your asylum application has been accepted and you have been granted refugee status, and you think you are safe, you could be caught by Mahmood's new laws and regulations to find that you're not safe after all, that you have “no right to be here”, and that you will be deported. Your refugee status is only temporary.
Asylum seekers are not breaking the law
Let me start by stating what should be obvious: seeking asylum is not illegal. The UK has signed and ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention (the primary international benchmark for the treatment of refugees). According to that Convention, a refugee is someone who,
owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.[1]
If that’s you, you have the right to claim asylum.
Nevertheless, Mahmood uses the word “illegal” 32 times in her statement to describe asylum seekers, refugees and other migrants, and their perfectly reasonable, and legal, actions.
She says that if you arrive in a small boat across the Channel you are “illegal”.
If you arrive in a small boat, you only become illegal if you don’t claim asylum. If you make an asylum claim which is subsequently rejected, you may then technically be here illegally, but you will almost certainly be deported rather than prosecuted.[2]
Previous governments have understood that crossing the Channel, by whatever means, is not illegal. Before the advent of small boats, many asylum seekers reached the UK border by hitchhiking on lorries (with or without the drivers’ knowledge), stowing themselves away on Eurostar or just clinging to the bottom of the trains.[3] Once discovered by the border guards, if they claimed asylum they would be given an initial asylum interview, directed to accommodation, and told to fill in a form for minimal financial support. This does not mean that asylum seekers were welcome and no one should imagine that this was an easy process: it was long, difficult and stressful, sometimes taking several days, with nowhere to rest or sleep comfortably after a long and often dangerous journey. Their interviewers, going beyond the stated purpose of a brief interview for the basic details of individuals and their claims, often went much further, accusing them of lying and threatening them with punishment; most of them eventually reached their accommodation, where they had another long wait for their main interview.[4] But they were not called illegal.
Claiming asylum is not illegal.
Your route and means of transport are not illegal
your lack of a passport or other “authorisation” is not illegal
Mahmood, however, calls you “illegal” if you’ve come in a small boat. She also says that if you initially come here by what even she accepts is a legal route (e.g. a work visa or a study visa) and then claim asylum after your work or study period has expired you are “illegal”. She gives two reasons for this. First, because you have “overstayed” your visa period, which makes you illegal.
Except that it doesn’t if you apply for asylum.
The specialist law firm Sterling Law states:
A protection claim may be lodged at any time, regardless of immigration status. Overstaying does not bar an asylum application.[5]
Secondly, Mahmood says that by applying for asylum when your visa has expired you “have made an active choice to come to the UK” and this, she says, makes you illegal. She counts it as “asylum shopping”. Previous Home Secretaries have also used this expression. It implies that asylum seekers are migrants on the make who cynically shop around for the country that looks like it might offer them the best deal and then apply for asylum there when they don’t need asylum at all. I doubt I have ever met an asylum seeker who has done that. The nearest examples I can think of are people like the young Kurdish man celebrating the Kurdish new year in Finsbury Park, North London. He told me: “I come here because England a democracy country.” I thought at the time that we should be proud of that. Mahmood, however, would no doubt say I was naïve. I would rather be naïve than cynically refuse someone the protection they need. What Mahmood says, however, is that if asylum seekers, on their journey, cross a safe country, they should immediately stop and claim asylum there and go no further. If they fail to do so, she says, they are “undermining an important principle that those fleeing persecution seek sanctuary in the first safe country they reach”.[6] But grand and universal as this “important principle” may sound, it isn’t. It simply echoes the Tory Nationality and Borders Act 2022, in which it was made UK law. When the last Tory government introduced it to parliament as a Bill, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) criticised it in the following terms:
The Bill is based on the premise that “people should claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in”. This principle is not found in the Refugee Convention and there is no such requirement under international law.[7]
The Tory government of the time took no notice of the warning. When the Bill passed through parliament and became the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, it still included the following:
A refugee is not to be taken to have come to the United Kingdom directly from a country where their life or freedom was threatened if, in coming from that country, they stopped in another country outside the United Kingdom, unless they can show that they could not reasonably be expected to have sought protection under the Refugee Convention in that country.[8]
As a result, this rule does now exist in UK law, but UNHCR’s criticism remains. Unfortunately, the current Labour government’s intention is clearly to retain the law and enforce the rule. We will have to wait and see how the policy develops and whether there will be any challenges to it.
In one sense this is nothing new. Governments have long tried, at every turn, to avoid their obligations under the Refugee Convention. Take the question of how you should be treated if you apply for asylum and don’t have a valid passport or you have travelled on a false passport. The Refugee Convention stipulates that countries signed up to it “shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who … enter or are present in their territory without authorisation …”[9]. Yet UK governments have historically found highly questionable ways of avoiding this no-penalty obligation, often successfully. For example, they asserted that certain actions, though legal, were “credibility” issues. So the Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004 laid down that
“failure without reasonable explanation to produce a passport on request to an immigration officer or to the Secretary of State”
“the production of a document which is not a valid passport as if it were” and
“the destruction, alteration or disposal, in each case without reasonable explanation, of a passport”
cast doubt on the asylum seeker’s credibility.[10] This ploy often worked, though it could be reversed during the appeals process.
No permanence, no duty to support, no security
In her policy statement Restoring Order and Control, Mahmood promises “an entirely new asylum model”.[11] Her style is combative from the start, her announcement contains beneath its surface, and in its harsh tone, accusations which she will spell out later. Under her new system, she declares,
refugee status becomes temporary - lasting only until a refugee can safely return home. Asylum seekers and refugees will not be offered the generous terms they currently receive. We will no longer have a duty to support those who have the ability to support themselves, nor those who break our laws or rules. Those who have assets will be forced to contribute to their bed-and-board.[12]
Here, then, are some of the changes to policy that Mahmood hopes will discourage the most desperate seeker after asylum from seeking after it in the UK.
Your status as a refugee will be temporary, amounting to just 30 months. On 2 March, in a written statement to the Commons, Mahmood made this policy official, and made it part of the immigration regulations.[13] You will be able to renew this temporary leave to remain (for another 30 months) only if the government decides that your country is still an unsafe country. If the Home Secretary decides that it is safe for you to return to your country, you will be deported back there. One of the problems with this, as we shall see, is that government assessments of a country’s safety have historically been unreliable. But you will not be consulted about the decision. You will just be told. On her second visit to Denmark just before she announced the change, she said:
… once a refugee’s home is safe, and they are able to return, they will be expected to do so.
In her policy statement, Mahmood had already praised Denmark’s harsh asylum policy as an example to follow. Her second visit was unnecessary and the speech she gave was pure theatre. The theatre of the cruel.
Until 2 March, your initial period of protection was five years, after which you could apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) and, subject mainly to the “good character” requirement, you would receive it. Mahmood deplored this state of affairs and, since 2 March, it is no longer the case. And you will not even be able to apply for ILR until you have been here for 20 years. All this, says Mahmood, is a move “towards a more basic, and temporary protection, which we call ‘core protection’.”[14] It’s hard to disagree with the Refugee Council’s comment when it was just a proposal that it “would leave people living in decades of insecurity, fearing removal even after rebuilding their lives … and leave families stuck in limbo for years.[15]
“Under core protection”, says Mahmood, “there will be no automatic right to family reunion.” Sure enough, an update to the Home Office website on 8 January announced that the Refugee Family Reunion section “is now closed to new applications pending a review”. Preparations were made for this well in advance of Mahmood’s November announcement. According to the update, your application would not be considered unless you submitted it “before 1500 on 4 September 2025.” British Red Cross says: "We don’t know what the new rules will look like, but it is expected they may involve stricter requirements. This could include (but is not limited to):
An application fee and Immigration Health Surcharge fee attached to each application.
A mandatory delay before a new refugee becomes eligible to apply for refugee family reunion.
A minimum income requirement for the sponsor. Or maintenance and accommodation requirements for the sponsor.
English language requirements for the family members applying to join the sponsor."[16]
This speculation on the part of the Red Cross seems reasonable. In the case of the minimum income requirement, the application fee and the English language requirement we already know that during the suspension of the Refugee Family Reunion route and until the new eligibility requirements are announced (probably in spring 2026),
people with refugee status can still apply via the family visa route, also available to British citizens and those with settled status. However, the main applicant must earn a minimum of £29,000 a year, prove their knowledge of English language and pay an application cost of £1,938 and the Immigration Health Surcharge (which for most individuals aged over 18 is £1,035 per year) per applicant.[17]
Again, it is difficult to disagree with the assessment of the Refugee Council: “Without accessible routes to reunite safely, families are at risk of remaining separated for years or trapped in dangerous circumstances.” The Council points out that this denial of an automatic right to family reunion has been announced “despite 90% of visas previously going to women and children.”[18]
One of Mahmood’s concerns, however, seems to be about money rather than protecting refugees’ family life. She says that under the previous system “refugees were also able to bring their family to join them in the UK … without incurring a fee and without having to demonstrate that they can accommodate or otherwise support them.”[19] She deplores this, much as she deplores the granting of ILR after five years. But the Refugee Convention doesn’t mention money, it just mentions protection. The European Convention on Human Rights, in its Article 8, doesn’t mention money either. It just establishes the right to family life.
If you are an asylum seeker you are not allowed to work. Under the current system, however, you may receive the support of state benefits until your asylum application is either granted or refused. This will change under the new system. In a chilling sentence, Mahmood declares, “We will remove the current legal obligation to provide support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute.”[20] The government can do this because, post-Brexit, the EU law that imposed that obligation no longer applies to the UK. “In the coming months”, says Mahmood, “this duty will be revoked.” We will instead go back to the pre-2005 system of “discretionary support”, i.e. support when the government thinks fit. It’s not clear what this will mean in practice. Mahmood simply says that this approach “will ensure asylum support is reserved only for those who need it and comply with the system.”[21]
But even if your asylum application has been granted, and you are a recognised refugee, albeit on a temporary basis, you are not safe from Mahmood’s strict regime. For example, unemployed refugees, disparagingly described as having “deliberately made themselves destitute”,[22] will also be denied support. But she offers another solution to them, if only they will take it.
Although the Refugee Convention identifies persecution in your home country and fear of returning to it as sufficient reasons for applying for asylum, Mahmood insists that protection must be “earned”. She wants refugees to integrate “more fully into the communities providing them sanctuary”.[23] This implies that she doesn’t think they integrate “fully” at present. I could introduce her to plenty of refugees – many of them now British citizens – who have integrated fine into their new home country. But I don’t think she’d be interested in meeting them. She seems convinced that refugees are lazy and ungrateful, that they will abuse the generosity they have been shown. So, arming herself with the work ethic, she offers “a new, in-country Protection Work and Study route”:
A person granted protection will be eligible to apply to move into this route if they obtain employment or commence study at an appropriate level and pay a fee. Once on this route, they will become eligible to ‘earn’ settlement sooner than they would under core protection alone.
Mahmoud announced a “consultation on earned settlement, covering both legal and illegal migrants”. The consultation ended on 12 February, so its findings are being considered but there’s little doubt that the government will get what it wants. But what happens if, in these precarious times, a refugee who wants to sign up to this route can’t find a job or a place in a college to study or train for an appropriate skill for their future employment? Or if the trauma experienced in their home country has made either of those aims difficult to achieve? The answer to that is not spelt out. We are simply told: “The government does not believe that refugees should seek to remain on core protection long-term.”[24]
Yet elsewhere in her policy statement, Mahmood seems to fear the opposite: asylum seekers, barred from working, are apparently too eager to work: “it is far too easy for people without the right to work to disappear into the UK’s illegal economy,” Mahmood complains. Solving this by giving asylum seekers the right to work does not appear to have been considered. Instead, there has been
a significant crackdown on illegal working – raising enforcement activity to the highest levels in recorded history. In the year ending September 2025, 11,000 raids were carried out by Immigration Enforcement; and by June 2025, over 2,100 civil penalties were issued to employers found to have hired illegal workers totalling over £117 million. Over 1,000 foreign nationals encountered on these operations have since been removed from the country.[25]
And once your employer has been cracked down on, your future seems likely to be destitution or deportation. And the reason for such an outcome will not be your misbehaviour or lawbreaking. It will be the government’s determination to dissuade, deter, reduce arrivals and increase deportations. The duty to protect is nowhere in sight.
I will discuss more of what the government has in store in the next blog. Much of it will require legislation, which will take longer to grind its way through parliament than a simple change to the regulations. There will be opportunities for resistance and protest both inside and outside parliament.
[1] Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 & 1967), Article 1, A. (2), UNHCR, Geneva: The 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees | UNHCR
[2] “Is it illegal to cross the Channel on a small boat?” Channel 4 News Fact Check: FactCheck: Is it illegal to cross the Channel on a small boat? – Channel 4 News
[3] Many still do, but by the year ending December 2025 “Small boat arrivals accounted for 89% of detected arrivals” via what the Home Office calls “illegal routes”: How many people come to the UK via illegal entry routes? Home Office, London: Immigration system statistics, year ending December 2025
[4] Mouncer, Bob (2009), Dealt with on their Merits? The Treatment of Asylum Seekers in the UK and France, para. 5.2, University of Hull, Kingston-upon-Hull.
[5]Immigration Rules for Overstayers in the UK (26/5/2025), Overstaying in the UK, UK Visa Expiry Rules, Sterling Law, London: Overstaying in the UK | UK Visa Expiry Rules – Sterling Law
[6]Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy (accessible) (November 2025), Home Office: Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy (accessible) - GOV.UK
[7]Updated Observations on the Nationality and Borders Bill, as amended, para. 7 (January 2022), UNHCR: UNHCR Updated Observations on the Nationality and Borders Bill, as amended | UNHCR UK
[8] Nationality and Borders Act 2022, s. 37(1), The Stationery Office Ltd, London.
[9] Convention and Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 & 1967), Article 31, UNHCR, Geneva: The 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees | UNHCR
[10] Asylum and Immigration (Treatment of Claimants) Act 2004, section 8 (Claimant’s credibility), subsection (3) (a), (b) and (c), The Stationery Office Ltd, London.
[11]Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy, Foreword from the Home Secretary, Home Office, London, © Crown copyright 2025: Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy (accessible) - GOV.UK
[12] Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy, Foreword from the Home Secretary, Home Office, London, © Crown copyright 2025: Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy (accessible) - GOV.UK
[13] Asylum changes: Home Office written statement, made on 2 March 2026: Asylum changes: 2 Mar 2026: Hansard Written Answers - TheyWorkForYou
[14]Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy, 1. Protection rights, Home Office, London, © Crown copyright 2025: Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy (accessible) - GOV.UK
[15] Five Critical Concerns about the New Asylum Plans, Refugee Council, 21 November 2025, London: Five critical concerns about the new asylum plans - Refugee Council
[16] “Refugee Family Reunion changes expected in 2026”, Family Reunion for Refugees, British Red Cross: Family reunion application guidance | British Red Cross
[17] Changes to Refugee Family Reunion, The Boaz Trust, 25 November 2025: Changes to Refugee Family Reunion | Boaz Trust.The Boaz Trust is a charity supporting asylum seekers and refugees. It was registered as a charity in 2005.
[18] Five Critical Concerns about the New Asylum Plans, Refugee Council, 21 November 2025, London: Five critical concerns about the new asylum plans - Refugee Council
[19]Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy, Home Office, London, © Crown copyright 2025: Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy (accessible) - GOV.UK
[20] Restoring Order: Section 2, Asylum Support
[21] Restoring Order: Section 2, Asylum Support.
[22] Restoring Order, Section 2: Asylum Support.
[23] Restoring Order, Part 1, Section 1: Protection Rights.
[24] Restoring Order, Part 1, Section 1: Protection Rights.
[25] Restoring Order, Part 2, Section 3, Illegal Working.
Source: New and old hostilities
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