Mahmood outlines safe immigration routes plan to win over Labour left | Immigration and asylum

Shabana Mahmood will seek to rally support for a controversial immigration bill from Labour’s progressive left as she launches plans to accelerate the opening of new safe and legal routes that will allow thousands of refugees to come to the UK.

The home secretary, who is one of the leading candidates to retain his job if Andy Burnham becomes prime minister, will next week introduce legislation that will also introduce new limits on immigration claims under human rights and modern slavery legislation.

Burnham is under pressure to clarify his stance on Mahmood’s immigration policies, amid unhappiness among some Labor MPs and charities who believe restrictions on asylum claims are too draconian.

Labour’s Alf Dubs called on Burnham on Friday to remove Mahmood from the Home Office and scrap asylum policies that involve “performative cruelty”.

The veteran Labor Party member, who came to Britain aged six in 1939 to escape persecution of Jews in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, said the home secretary’s talents would be “better used elsewhere in the cabinet”.

“This is a reset moment for Labor, where we can push past some of the appalling language politicians have used to describe refugees – ‘invaders’, ‘island of strangers’, ‘tearing our country apart’,” he said.

With Burnham scheduled to take over at No 10 next month, Mahmood is trying to soften some of his hard-line plans, including reconsidering separate proposals that would see immigrants wait 10 years for indefinite leave to remain, rather than five.

He has also been involved in talks to exempt care workers from the changes, and on Friday he clashed with Keir Starmer over the future of immigration minister Mike Tapp, who is accused of briefing the Times on the proposals and passing off the plans as his own. Mahmood called for Tapp, a Starmer loyalist, to be sacked but the No 10 refused.

Sources in Burnham’s wing said Mahmood would likely remain at the Home Office, but cabinet jobs had not yet been determined. The Home Secretary’s sweeping push for immigration plans is backed by Burnham, but she has previously suggested she has reservations about changes to immigrants already in the UK remaining indefinitely.

Although he is not expected to be appointed prime minister until July 20, he is understood to have agreed that the new immigration bill should be introduced on Tuesday as planned.

The bill will be introduced within days and will include two safe and legal routes for refugees, opening from the autumn; one is a sponsorship scheme that allows community groups to identify refugees to support, the other is a university student scheme where applications are due within months and refugees will arrive next year. A third scheme would allow employers to sponsor refugees from next year.

Mahmood has previously said new safe and legal routes will allow hundreds of refugees a year to come to the UK, and a Labor source said the aim was to reach thousands of refugees a year.

A similar program in Canada, based on community sponsorship, has allowed 400,000 refugees into the country since 1979.

Analysis of the latest immigration statistics shows a 50% drop in the number of refugees arriving through safe and legal routes in the first quarter of 2026 compared to the first quarter of 2025. Just over 3,600 people were granted protection through resettlement plans or family reunification.

Refugee family reunification in the UK, which allows family members to reunite with loved ones, was halted by Mahmood in September 2025 and was expected to reopen in spring 2026. There is currently no date for when applications will reopen.

Critics point out that families fleeing war and persecution have virtually no safe and legal means to reach the UK; This increases their risk of being dragged into dangerous journeys out of desperation to find safety and reunite with loved ones.

A Labor source said: “The home secretary believes we must play our humanitarian role to provide a safe haven for those fleeing danger.

“That’s why we will open new, safe and legal routes for genuine refugees. These will be modest at first, grow over time, with the aim of thousands of refugees coming every year to make a new life here in Britain once order and control are restored.”

Other measures expected to be included in the bill are as follows:

• Repealing modern slavery protections for any foreign national who commits a crime and is sentenced, and removes the previous 12-month threshold.

• Dismissing last-minute modern slavery claims where objections could have been made earlier or where there is evidence of forged documents.

• Allowing immigration claims to fall under the right to family life only if the family member is a parent, spouse or child under 18, except in exceptional circumstances.

• A new test that makes clear that the deportation of foreign criminals is in the public interest and should be prevented only in very exceptional cases.
  Family reunification applications under the right to family life will in future need to be made by a UK-based sponsor, rather than by the overseas family member.

• Providing every trafficked and exploited child with a dedicated independent guardian to support their protection and recovery.

Speaking before the bill was introduced, Mahmood said: “I will open new legal pathways for genuine refugees, while closing loopholes that are often abused. My aim is simple: to ensure we have an asylum system not just today, but for future generations.”

Dubs called for the Burnham-led government to defend “human rights, compassion, justice and equality” while asserting control of the UK’s borders.

“This is Andy Burnham’s opportunity to correct some of the mistakes the Starmer government has made regarding asylum seekers and refugees,” he said.

“For example, proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain that would apply retroactively to people who came here in good faith and according to the rules are absolutely unfair and need to be reconsidered.”

Dubs, 93, was transported to the United Kingdom on the Kindertransport train, which he later discovered had been organized by London-based stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton.

He said the proposed changes would leave children “out in the cold” and make it impossible for them to seek shelter in the UK.

Dubs said Labor should seek to control Britain’s borders but do so “without tyranny”.

“This control must also come with our commitment to fundamental rights and compassion for those at a time when it is needed most. It is not performance-oriented cruelty, such as briefing the Home Office to start confiscating jewelery from refugees at the border. Or using inflammatory language to accuse refugees of ‘tearing our country apart’.”

Jo Cobley, chief executive of Safe Passage International, said she expected the bill to be introduced “once a new prime minister is confirmed” but the home secretary appeared determined to implement these tough plans for refugees.

Madeleine Sumption, director of the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory, said the proposed scheme would be attractive to potential sponsors looking to bring in specific members of their communities.

“As the details are finalized, I think there will be some debate about who can sponsor. For example, will faith groups such as churches and mosques be licensed as sponsors, and if so, will they be able to choose on the basis of faith?” he said.