Shabana Mahmood has outlined plans to extend community schemes sponsoring refugees, which will be included in the Immigration Bill.

A Labour source has said thousands of refugees would achieve settlement through these projects, but no figures have been released, although Mahmood has previously only mentioned hundreds arriving through new safe and legal routes.

A new university student scheme will also be launched ,and , from next year, one allowing employers to sponsor refugees. Immigration statistics reveal that the number of refugees arriving on  safe and legal routes has dropped by 50 per cent over the past year.

Other measures include:

• Removing modern slavery protections for any foreign national who has committed a crime and received a sentence, scrapping the previous 12-month threshold.

• Rejecting last-minute modern slavery claims where an objection could have been raised earlier or where there is evidence of false documentation.

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

• A new test to make clear that deporting foreign national offenders is in the public interest and should only be blocked in the most exceptional circumstances.
  Applications for family reunion under the right to a family life will in future have to be brought by a UK-based sponsor, not the overseas family member.

• Giving every trafficked and exploited child a dedicated independent guardian to support their safeguarding and recovery.Lord Dubs has attacked some of the proposals, saying that the retrospective application of of changes to leave to remain are “unjust”, and that unaccompanied children would be left “out in the cold”, and unable to seek sanctuary.He has censured the “performative cruelty” of briefing that refugees’ jewellery would be seized at the border,  or using “incendiary language to blame refugees for ‘tearing the country apart'”.The UNHCR has also condemned aspects of the Bill:

• UNHCR notes with concern the government’s plans to reduce the duration of leave granted to individual in need of international protection to 30 months. Such a change would place additional administrative and costly burdens on the asylum system, create greater uncertainty for refugees, and negatively affect integration and social cohesion. 
   
  A person who remains on the “core protection” route will have their refugee status reassessed eight times in 20 years before they can be eligible for settlement. 
   
  The right to family life is enshrined in international and regional human rights instruments such as the UN Convention and the ECHR. UNHCR notes with concern that it is not clear that individuals on the  “core protection” route will have access to family reunion at all. 
   
  Family reunion was one of the few pathways that remained accessible to refugees and primarily benefitted women and children and was not nationality-specific. Denying the possibility of family reunification would have profound and harmful effects. UNHCR wishes to draw attention to the right to family life for children, as specifically protected under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 
   
  Cessation of refugee status as a result of changed circumstances in the country of origin under Article 1c(5) of the Refugee Convention is only permissible where the changes are fundamental and durable, and where effective protection is available in the country of origin.
• https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/26/mahmood-outlines-safe-immigration-routes-plan-to-win-over-labour-left