Home Secretary’s Shabana Mahmood’s plans have sparked fury among backbench Labour MPs.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood (Image: Getty)
Children born in the UK to refugee parents could face deportation under Shabana Mahmood’s asylum crackdown, according to reports.
The Home Office told The Times that children would be required to leave the country with their parents if their refugee status was revoked.
A source told the newspaper that the move ensures there are not “perverse incentives” for refugees to have children in the UK “on the basis that they can stay”.
The Home Secretary was accused by Lord Dubs, who came to Britain as a child after fleeing the Nazis, of using “children as a weapon” to make the country less attractive for refugees.
The Home Office will set out changes to the way that a child born to refugees in the UK can apply for settled status “in due course”, The Times said.
Labour’s plans include cutting the time refugees are initially granted to stay in the UK, from five years to a 30-month “core protection” system, which can only be renewed if it is not safe for them to return.
Refugees will have to spend 20 years in the UK before being allowed to apply for settled status, up from five years.
There will be no automatic right to family reunion for refugees under core protection.
Housing and weekly allowances will no longer be guaranteed for asylum seekers and those who can work or have valuable assets will have to contribute to their costs in the UK.
Families with children could also be subject to enforced returns under measures to remove those with no right to be in the UK.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the measures did not go far enough, adding that leaving the European Convention on Human Rights was necessary to address the problem.
She said: “The fact is, we have looked at this issue from every possible direction, and the reality is that any plan that doesn’t include leaving the ECHR as a necessary step is wasting time we don’t have.”
