In July 2024 the Home Office established the Border Security Command, which was given a statutory footing with the passage of the Border Security, Asylum & Immigration Act in December 2025, continuing the trend towards ever more border securitisation, militarisation and criminalisation, particularly since the UK-France Sandhurst Treaty of 2018. Extensive research has linked this to an escalation of state-sponsored border violence and record fatalities in the English Channel. Despite soaring and avoidable fatalities, the government does not officially record or report on these deaths, and refused to engage with amendments in Parliament in 2025 that would have addressed this data gap. (More info from Humans for Rights Network, Project Play and Refugee Council) 

From December 2024 to July 2025, the UK Government paused the processing of Syrian asylum and settlement applications. Over 730 organisations and individuals on the frontline of providing support to people seeking asylum wrote to the Home Secretary urging the government to restore processing of asylum applications, to grant Syrians and other asylum seekers waiting over six months for a decision the right to work, and to commit to no forced returns of Syrians in the UK.This suspension of processing, at a time when the Foreign Office continued to advise against all travel to Syria, left at least 6500 Syrians in legal limbo and fear of coercive returns. Despite the UK Government itself still highlighting “deeply concerning” violence, mass displacement of civilians and a deteriorating humanitarian situation in Syria, the Home Secretary announced in November that it is considering enforced returns. (More info from GMIAU, UNHCR and Right to Remain)

In July 2025, the government published new “Failure to Travel” guidance to remove accommodation and financial support from any single adults seeking asylum who refuse to travel to new “no-choice basis” asylum accommodation without a ‘valid reason’, with a narrower definition of ‘valid’ – threatening to plunge more people seeking safety into homelessness and destitution. (More info from Right to Remain)

In September 2025, the Home Office announced a “temporary” suspension of refugee family reunion applications, effectively shutting down one of only remaining so-called “safe and legal” routes available to people seeking asylum in the UK, with a disproportionate impact on women and children who made up 92% of family reunion grants according to Home Office data. This is being challenged in the High Court by Safe Passage, and over 60 organisations have condemned the suspension of this route and the new Appendix FM system that now forces refugees to meet a minimum income requirement that 50% of the UK working population would not meet to reunite with their loved ones in a place of safety. This followed the government closing Afghan refugee resettlement routes in July 2025.  (More info from Helen Bamber Foundation and Safe Passage)  

In October 2025, the government announced its plans to move hundreds of people seeking asylum into military sites, announcing two new camps at Cameron Barracks in Inverness and Crowborough in East Sussex, despite pledging to shut down existing camps prior to the General Election. In January 2026, the Home Office began moving people into Crowborough, where conditions have already been described as akin to ‘a concentration camp’ by observers. The National Audit Office, the Public Accounts Committee and the Home Affairs Select Committee have all found that large-scale sites like these have failed to deliver value for taxpayer money and have resulted in ‘billions squandered’, costing even more than hotels. There is also a wealth of research evidencing the harm inflicted on people accommodated in these camp settings. (More info from Asylum Matters, HBF & HFRN, MSF & DOTW, Runnymede Trust & Care4Calais and the APPG for Immigration Detention)

In March 2026, the Home Secretary created a new temporary status called for newly-granted refugees, meaning they will have their protection needs ‘reviewed’ every 30 months. For those whose country is now deemed to be safe by the Home Office, they will be expected to return there – either voluntarily or by forcible deportation. This scheme has been condemned by UNHCR. Refugee Council estimates these changes will cost taxpayers up to £1.27bn, and Australia scrapped temporary protection visas in 2023, citing it making ‘no sense – economically or socially’ to keep people in limbo. Other critiques of the policy suggest it is inconsistent with human rights and international law and that it will disproportionately harm women and survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. (More info from UNHCR, GMIAU and Refugee Council)

In March 2026, the government announced that it will revoke the legal duty to provide accommodation and financial support to destitute asylum seekers, changing it from a statutory obligation to a discretionary power, and it laid down statutory instruments on 5 March 2026 to bring this into force from June 2026. Financial and accommodation support is the only lifeline for destitute asylum seekers banned from work, and it already leaves people in dire poverty. Revoking the legal duty to provide this support risks driving asylum seekers into homelessness and further destitution, and placing additional pressure on local authorities. (More info from NACCOM and Asylum Matters)

The new bill is how the Government will turn many of the assaults on asylum rights announced in the Restoring Order and Control statement into law. It introduces a £10,000 ‘refugee tax’ which people would have to pay once granted asylum status; narrows the definition of family life in human rights claims; changes how modern slavery cases are assessed and creates a new Independent Appeals Authority which replaces trained immigration judges with less experienced adjudicators. It establishes the new ‘core protection status’ which allows the Government to make refugee status temporary. (More info from Right to Remain here.)