Changes to the immigration and asylum systems risk increasing harm

Changes to the immigration and asylum systems risk increasing harm

7 July, 2026

Proposed changes to the immigration and asylum systems pose significant risk to individuals in them, and the country as a whole. These hostile policies create a system where all migrants face increased discrimination, division and hate. Labour must take the opportunity of a change in leadership to rethink this course of action.

Increasing lengths of some visa routes from five years to ten, at least, and then applying it retroactively for those already in the system is a cruel and inhumane proposal which leaves many migrants in fear for our futures. Unable to build lives, or have stability, these proposals undermine our health and our families.

Through our work we see the harm which the existing ten-year-route causes to people on it. Many forced into destitution by extortionate costs and facing serious mental health issues from the stress of it all. The answer to fixing that is not to put more people on these routes. It is to cap all routes at a maximum of five years and bring the costs of visas down in line with their actual processing costs.

The changes to the asylum system are draconian and hostile in their manner of focusing on exclusion over protection. Even the so-called “new safe routes” are not new, nor are they genuine “safe routes”. Community sponsorship has existed for more than a decade, and it does have its place. Making it one of the default options on a national level is guaranteed to see people in need of asylum excluded from receiving it, while putting the onus of protection on communities and away from the state.

This is equally true for the absurd proposals of getting members of the public to determine asylum appeals. Once again this government shows that it has no consideration for the lives of those seeking safety. Instead it intends to allow a self-selecting group of people with no understanding of how and why people seek asylum to determine whether they will, in many cases, live or die. This is a policy aimed at pandering to the very people who attempt to burn those seeking safety alive in hotels. How can that be deemed “responsible” in any shape or form.

All these are policies specifically designed to cause harm. It is hard not to feel they are policies rooted in racism and hatred of minorities. Policies which will only increase division in society. The racists who attempted to burn people alive during riots will be emboldened by these measures which tell them that migrants and minorities are ”lesser”, that they are “expendable” and “unwanted”.

We need immigration and asylum systems which are based on respect and dignity for migrants. Instead, we are seeing yet more hostile policies aimed at demonising us and restricting our rights. For those seeking asylum this restriction of rights underpins the very basis of this government’s changes, restricting access to rights under the European Convention on Human Rights and weakening protections for modern slavery and trafficking survivors.

When you make human rights conditional based upon the group which someone belongs to you weaken them for everyone. For the first time since the ECHR was signed, this government has specifically said that human rights are not universal. This is beyond “just” migration. This is a message which will be taken by white supremacists and other bigots around the country to claim that others do not have the rights which they themselves believe they are entitled to.

Labour has an opportunity now to change course. With a change of leader comes the potential for a shift from the inhumane policies we have seen thrown at migrants for years, by both Labour and the previous Conservative government. Instead, we could have a system which recognises that we are more than statistics on a spreadsheet or a ‘magic money tree’ for the government coffers. A system which treats us as people.

The government claims they are basing their system on fairness, but there is nothing fair about stripping people of human rights, actively emboldening the far right and telling the world that the UK sees those not born here as being “second class” to those who are.