Category Archives: Home Office

Eritrea accuses Shabana Mahmood of ‘political gimmick’ over visa ban threat

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Home secretary says she will block all Eritreans from UK unless a returns deal is agreed for rejected asylum seekers and criminals

Shabana Mahmood has been accused of launching a “perfunctory political gimmick” by the Eritrean government in a row over the return of rejected asylum seekers and criminals.

After the home secretary threatened to block all Eritreans from entering the UK unless a returns deal was agreed, the country’s embassy claimed the UK had failed to engage in “meaningful and appropriate” dialogue.

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People smugglers are still profiting from small boats. Can the UK fix the crisis?

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As ‘one in, one out’ scheme ends, refugees still want to cross the Channel despite French police aggression and hostile welcomes

The smuggler works quickly. Using a small shovel, he digs up a dinghy buried in a sand dune on a beach not far from Boulogne-sur-Mer, assembles it and affixes a motor in record time.

“I never saw anyone work like this,” says Amad, from Iraq, one of a group of about 30 asylum seekers waiting to cross the Channel. “The UK government wants to stop the smugglers, but they are smart. They have plan A, plan B and plan C, so there is always a way for them to get people across this sea. For as long as asylum seekers will pay them, there is too much money involved for them to give up.”

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UK accused of giving people of Gaza false hope over new refugee safe route

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Only ‘very small number’ of people already in Lebanon or Jordan will be referred, says organisation running scheme

The Home Office is facing claims it gave false hope to the people of Gaza after it emerged that a new safe route for Palestinian refugees will only be open to those who have already escaped to Lebanon or Jordan.

Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced the reopening of a resettlement scheme for refugees at Labour’s annual conference last month. A statement from her department said: “Around one in four referrals will be for Afghan women and girls and Palestinian refugees, fleeing war and persecution.”

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UK to open new refugee resettlement routes for Afghan women and Palestinians

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Exclusive: Move by Shabana Mahmood comes after closure of Afghan scheme last year but experts say numbers too small to deter Channel crossings

Shabana Mahmood will announce a new legal route for refugees that prioritises Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, unfreezing a scheme that will put the most vulnerable refugees on a faster path to permanent status.

The change marks a shift in Mahmood’s approach to asylum seekers after the abrupt closure of the Afghan resettlement scheme last year and changes that will keep refugee status under constant review for two decades.

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Ukrainians in UK fear homelessness over host scheme funding cuts

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Monthly ‘thank you’ payments for people hosting refugees to be cut from £350 to £100 from next year

Ukrainian refugees in the UK fear they could be left homeless after the government quietly axed 70% of funding for hosts of the Homes for Ukraine scheme, reducing monthly “thank you” payments to them from £350 to £100.

The scheme was launched after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has provided support for 181,000 of the 234,000 Ukrainians who have since sought sanctuary in the UK.

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Victims say Home Office attempt to curtail spycops inquiry will result in a ‘cover-up’

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Shabana Mahmood is concerned about length and £144m cost of inquiry into intrusive police surveillance

Victims of intrusive police surveillance have accused the government of seeking to cut short the spycops public inquiry that has been examining widespread misconduct committed by undercover officers.

The independent judge-led inquiry is scrutinising how officers, who spied on tens of thousands of political activists over more than four decades, carried out abuses such as deceiving women into sexual relationships and fathering children.

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Hundreds of asylum seekers removed from UK to France have disappeared, say NGOs

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Rights groups say those missing after being deported under one in, one out deal include dozens of age-disputed children

Hundreds of asylum seekers including at least 41 age-disputed children who were removed to France under the “one in, one out” deal have disappeared, human rights organisations have said.

The pilot scheme was hailed as “groundbreaking” by the former prime minister Keir Starmer when he and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced it in July 2025. Under a treaty drawn up for this agreement, it forcibly returns small-boat asylum seekers to France in exchange for others brought legally to the UK from France.

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Gaza refugee says sister-in-law ‘would be alive’ if Home Office had let her come to UK

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Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, says Home Office refused visa application despite Maryam having cancer

A man living in the UK has said he believes his sister-in-law who died from cancer in Gaza would still be alive today if the Home Office had agreed to bring her and her family to Britain.

Anwar, who lives in Glasgow, fled Gaza in 2020 and was granted refugee status in the UK in 2021. After the destruction of large areas of Gaza by Israeli forces following the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023, he applied to bring his brother Hassan, Hassan’s wife, Maryam, their two young children and other family members to the UK in October 2025. He said the Home Office rejected their application.

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Manchester synagogue attack: ministers seek to block MI5 files from inquest

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Government lawyers tell coroner disclosing intelligence would pose serious risk to national security

Ministers are seeking to block intelligence material from being heard at an inquest into the death of two men killed in the 2025 Manchester synagogue attack.

Lawyers for Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, told a coroner on Thursday that disclosing the MI5 files would pose a serious risk to national security.

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French police accused of rising use of violence to stop Channel crossings

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NGO criticises ‘human cost’ of UK-funded crackdown on attempts to set off from French beaches in small boats

People trying to cross the Channel to the UK have reported an increase in French police use of violence on beaches to prevent them from getting into dinghies, according to a French NGO.

Utopia 56, which works on beaches from where migrants attempt Channel crossings, says so far this year 2,720 people have reported being victims of French police violence, compared with 1,954 over the same period last year, when crossings overall were much higher.

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Home Office could be blocked from deporting trafficking victims to Albania

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Many males are returned even if they have been trafficked but Home Office must now consider new legal guidance

The Home Office could be blocked from deporting many young male trafficking victims to Albania after a major court ruling.

Thousands of Albanian males have been identified as potential trafficking victims in the UK in recent years. Many are sent back to their country even if they are potential or confirmed victims of trafficking, as the Home Office contends they will be safe there.

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Nearly 100 children detained as adults under UK-France migration deal

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Figures emerge in critical letter to Home Office from organisation appointed to scrutinise detention facilities

Nearly 100 children have been wrongly identified and detained as adults under Shabana Mahmood’s “one in, one out” deal with France, the Guardian can disclose.

Home Office staff said that of 304 age-disputed cases arising from the scheme over nine months, 94 (31%) – were ultimately found to be minors. Children are supposed to be excluded from the scheme, while government policy limits immigration detention of unaccompanied children to 24 hours.

Had been awaiting deportation for more than six months, despite being supposed be held for up to 28 days only “in exceptional cases”.

Were being readied for removal to France despite having TB or requiring hospital treatment.

Faced removal after being separated from family members with whom they had travelled, which she said had a “particularly damaging impact”.

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Thursday briefing: What happens after an asylum hotel closes?

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In today’s newsletter: With more sites closed and more lives upended, a look at the rhetoric and reality of where asylum seekers should be housed

Good morning. This week, immigration minister Anna Turley announced, with minor fanfare, the government will stop using a further 13 hotels to house asylum seekers across the country.

It brings the total shut this year to 44, in pursuit of Labour’s manifesto pledge, now reiterated by Andy Burnham, to cease hotel use completely by the end of this parliament. Doing so would remove what have become highly visible symbols of an increasingly toxic debate about migration. Less than 160 to go, according to the Home Office.

Solar eclipse | Wednesday’s eclipse began in Russia’s remote Arctic north, going on to trace an arc over much of western Europe. From the UK to northern Italy, tens of millions of people turned to the sky as the light of the setting sun was almost completely blocked out.

UK news | Nurses are collapsing during shifts amid “inhumane and impossible” conditions caused by extreme heat, their union has warned, as Andy Burnham promised to grapple with “the bigger questions” of climate adaptation.

US politics | Karoline Leavitt will step down as White House press secretary at the end of August, Donald Trump announced.

Science | Astronomers claim to have discovered a new kind of cosmic object, a black hole “star”, which is the size of the entire solar system and glows with a brilliant red light.

Middle East | Israeli militants have besieged two Palestinian families in their homes since the weekend, aiming to take over their properties in the West Bank village of Qusra through a campaign of terror.

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Thetford residents remain on edge after days of ‘mob rule’ over asylum plans

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People voice frustration with officials’ failure to engage with community over placement of asylum seekers in area

A smashed window pane and some broken eggshells on a footpath were some of the tell-tale signs of events that took place this week on a residential street at the edge of Thetford.

On Friday afternoon it was not hard to find local people with a sense of foreboding after the latest disorder in the Norfolk market town which has seen crowds attempt to break into properties believed to be housing asylum seekers.

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French officers halted small boats at sea 10 times since spring

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Disclosure challenges Conservative and Reform claims that police are refusing to intervene

The French authorities have halted small boats at sea in the Channel on 10 occasions since the spring, officials said on Friday.

Despite claims from the Conservatives and Reform that the French were refusing to intervene in small boat crossings, maritime prefect officers were using “intervention tactics” to board or control vessels at sea and take asylum seekers back to France.

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Nearly 50 asylum seekers deported under ‘one in one out’ scheme have returned to the UK

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Figure raises questions about deal with France despite UK ministers insisting repeat arrivals will be removed

Almost 50 asylum seekers deported using the “one in one out” scheme have been recorded as returning to the UK a second time, the Guardian has learned.

In addition to the returnees detained by the Home Office, an unknown number are believed to have arrived in the UK undetected.

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Home Office blocking evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza

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Refugee family reunions in limbo, despite Foreign Office saying it is ready get people out of war-torn territory

The Home Office is blocking the evacuation of dozens of women and children from Gaza, despite the Foreign Office saying it is ready to get people out of the war-torn region.

Last September, the Home Office announced it was suspending refugee family reunion applications and that new, more restrictive rules would be announced in the spring. So far there has been no announcement and the process remains suspended.

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Home Office rejects Palestinian Jerusalemite woman’s UK visa but approves husband’s

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Officials not satisfied Therese Abdallah is a ‘genuine visitor’ and believe she would not leave after visit to son in London

A Palestinian Jerusalemite who lives in London has been left devastated after a planned trip by his parents had to be cancelled when the Home Office ruled his mother was not a “genuine visitor” but granted his father a visa.

Karim Abdallah, who has lived in the UK since 2019, was looking forward to hosting his parents, Therese Abdallah, 69, a retired English teacher, and his father, Ghassan Abdallah, a psychologist, for a few weeks.

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Existing care workers could be exempt from UK’s tough new immigration rules

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Exclusive: Andy Burnham thought to be considering waiving stricter right to remain rules for people already working in the sector

Hundreds of thousands of care workers could be exempted from the home secretary’s plans to toughen up the immigration system under proposals being considered by Andy Burnham as he looks for ways to relieve pressure on the social care sector.

The prime minister will give a speech next week spelling out his determination to start creating a National Care Service before the next general election as he looks to accelerate the process set up by his predecessor, Keir Starmer.

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More than 16,000 refugees unable to reunite with families in UK, says Refugee Council

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Suspension of family reunion route has left many stuck in conflict zones or using people smugglers to reach safety

More than 16,000 refugees have been unable to reunite with families in the UK, leaving them either stuck in conflict zones or resorting to using people-smugglers to reach safety, according to the Refugee Council.

The government suspended the refugee family reunion route last September. It allowed a person granted refugee status to apply to bring immediate family members such as a spouse and their children under 18 to reunite with them in the UK. The indication was that the suspension would last until the spring of this year.

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