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UK to reopen refugee resettlement scheme to push 'safe' migration / Photo: Darren Staples - AFP
UK to reopen refugee resettlement scheme to push 'safe' migration
UK interior minister Shabana Mahmood announced Monday the reopening of a scheme for refugees to settle in Britain as part of a renewed focus on "safe and legal routes" for vulnerable people to reach the country.
The scheme will be relaunched immediately, and along with three new "community" refugee sponsorship routes previously announced, is initially expected to welcome hundreds of applicants, according to the interior ministry.
Mahmood formally unveiled the plan in a speech at the ruling Labour Party's annual conference in Liverpool, when she said "fairness" would be integral to the government's immigration agenda.
It comes amid pushback from some within centre-left Labour over a series of hardline policies aimed at both tightening the rules for migrants arriving via legal routes while curbing asylum-seeker numbers coming by irregular means.
To be run in partnership with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), it follows the closure of an Afghan resettlement route last year.
The planned changes include contentious proposals to make some legal migrants wait years longer than under current rules before they can apply to settle permanently in the UK.
Housing Secretary Angela Rayner, an influential figure within Labour, said in a newspaper interview last week that she was concerned about some of the plans because they "change the goalposts".
Around a quarter of applicants to the reopened resettlement scheme are expected to be Afghan women and girls and Palestinians, Mahmood told the Labour conference.
"We will take vulnerable refugees from across the world and give them the chance of a new and better life here in Britain with the first arrivals this year," she said.
Within days, charities and nonprofits will be able to apply to become sponsors of refugees, with the first arrivals under this route expected in around a year's time.
The numbers arriving under the legal programmes "will grow into the low thousands as levels of illegal migration fall", according to the ministry, which noted an annual cap will be set.
"I know that the British people have not given up on their belief that we should be compassionate, live up to our international obligations, and save the lives of those fleeing war and persecution," Mahmood said.
"But I also know this process must be capped and controlled, with communities ready and able to welcome those who come here."
H.Roldan--HdM
