Detention Forum

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

So if I’ve understood correctly, we’re going to carry on supporting illegal wars whilst also blaming people who flee the ensuing chaos and destruction

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

🧵This is the biggest attack on the rights of recognised refugees in recent memory & is reminiscent of the worst failed policies of the disastrous last govt.

People seeking safety need security in order to start over, but this govt seems to want to forget that there are people at the centre of this.

The Queer(y)ing Asylum Podcast S3E3: Queering UK Refugee Law with Alex Powell

It was an absolute pleasure to appear on The Queer(y)ing Asylum Podcast recently to talk about my book Queering Refugee Law with Dr Diego García Rodríguez.

The episode is accessible now via Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/211r...

Your 3-minute guide to today’s asylum policy changes

Information – today’s asylum changes - GMIAU GMIAU information and advice on changes to asylum and refugee protection announced by the Home Secretary, 2nd March 2026.

📄NEW: Today, the Home Secretary has announced that from now on, refugees who apply for and are granted asylum in the UK will be given 2.5 years’ temporary refugee status.

While there are still many unanswered questions, we have shared what we know so far, and what we think about it in a blog post:

"The system tells us to shrink ouselves. To be less of who we are in order to belong."

Join the Mass Lobby for Migrant Rights on 11th March. Raise your voice. www.praxis.org.uk/mass-lobby-a...

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood shifts government language from addressing legitimate concerns to "legitimate grievances" and the legitimacy of "resentment" of asylum seekers & spending

She does contrast this with a view she will exclude as illegitimate, which is "hating everyone who is not white"

The discourse seems to have lost some time ago the point that coming without permission if you are a refugee is actually something we are committed under international law to accepting and responding positively to, not something Ministers ahould be rejecting and stoking resentment towards.

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

Refugees do not choose to come here - by definition, they were forced to flee.

Scrapping permanent status will trap refugees in a state of insecurity and fear. This is inhumane cruelty.

Doing so says some people deserve fewer rights - and that inequality is law.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

Harsh asylum rules do not stop people fleeing war or abuse.

Temporary status only traps traumatised people in a constant state of uncertainty, denying people the stability they need to rebuild their lives.

This is the opposite of the protection our asylum system should provide.

Refugee status to be temporary as Shabana Mahmood rips up rules on UK asylum Home secretary announces 30-month protection limit, with refugees required to leave if their home countries are later judged safe

🚨 From today, every person granted refugee status in the UK will be given temporary status of just 30 months.

Short-term leave traps people in cycles of uncertainty, making it much more difficult for them to rebuild their lives in our communities.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... 1/2

“A callous lack of care”: Critics slam UK government’s refusal to reform migrant worker visa scheme - FreedomUnited.org Critics say the UK’s refusal to reform the Seasonal Worker visa scheme leaves migrant workers vulnerable to forced labor and trafficking.

Last year, the Migration Advisory Committee published a detailed review of the UK’s Seasonal Worker visa scheme, recommending reforms to curb exploitation of migrant workers. But the government has refused key changes, leaving workers vulnerable to trafficking.

During the Covid pandemic Prof Chris Whitty warned restrictions + NHS charges for migrants would spur an outbreak’s transmission. This was ignored; immigration policy was favoured over public safety. Now the Migrants’ Rights Consortium has shown this undermined trust + deterred people seeking care.

Failures in care of epileptic man who died in immigration detention, inquest hears Théophile Kaliviotis died in custody at Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick Airport

It’s deeply alarming that detention centres are failing to follow their own safeguarding guidance - just weeks after excessive force against vulnerable migrants was exposed at Brook House.

Immigration detention actively inflicts harm. It must end.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

A British Ice would be a disaster Reform’s anti-migrant policies are sounding more and more American

The UK's anti-migrant politics is sounding more & more American

Me, for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social on why Reform's plans for a British ICE are a disaster www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

‘How can I start again at 68?’ Maria has spent 50 years in the UK – and is fighting deportation She left the Netherlands for Britain in the 1970s at just 17. Now, after receiving a short suspended sentence, she faces removal to a country she hasn’t lived in for five decades or visited since 1999

Cruel and stupid from the Home Office (what's new?) Maria is clearly what Carens calls a "social member" of UK society. She should be granted citizenship, not kicked out of the country. People abandon their moral judgement when presented with abstractions like "foreign criminal". This is the reality

The latest immigration statistics are OUT

Immigration is once again DOWN

… but I don’t know who exactly is going to be happy about it🤷‍♀️

Rights groups urge airlines to halt ‘one in, one out’ deportation flights British and French activists write to Air France, AlbaStar, Titan and Corendon airlines over ‘shameful involvement’

We've written to the four airlines carrying out deportations under the cruel and inhumane UK-France agreement.

They are: Air France, Titan Airways, AlbaStar Airlines & Corenden Airlines.

We call on them to end their complicity, now.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

UK migrant families face giving up vital in-work benefits to avoid being ‘punished’ Under Shabana Mahmood’s proposals, wait for settled status would double to 20 years if public funds used while in work

What this means is that the UK government is going to entrench child poverty, deep poverty, and homelessness for many people across the country.

@ramfel.bsky.social

🚨The government is rushing through new rules making it harder for people to belong in our communities.

It takes just 2 minutes to share your concerns about "earned settlement" with you MP, using this template from @praxisprojects.bsky.social 🔽

act.praxis.org.uk/email-mp-con...

On 11th March, we’re turning up to Parliament in the Mass Lobby for Migrant Rights.

Along with migrant and refugee groups, unions, and faith groups we’re going to call on as many MPs as possible to oppose the Government’s earned settlement plans.

Learn more: www.praxis.org.uk/mass-lobby-a...

UK suspension of refugee family reunion scheme to be challenged in high court Judge allows Safe Passage International to launch judicial review of halting of right to bring in children and partners

📢"The impact of families being separated in the chaos of fleeing cannot be underestimated. The government is abandoning the UK’s duties to protect refugee children."

@safepassageintl.bsky.social is challenging the suspension of refugee family reunion in court.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

How rightwing rhetoric has risen sharply in the UK parliament – an exclusive visual analysis In the past five years, MPs’ attitudes in the House of Commons towards immigration have swung harder to the right than at almost any other time in the last century

The political debate about migration is the most hostile it has been in almost a century, with the biggest swing in just the last few years.

Language has consequences, it trickles into in our policies and into violence on our streets.
www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-...

The conversation about housing is all wrong.

For decades, governments haven’t built enough social homes. People are struggling. Yet refugees get blamed.

Our new video flips the narrative and focuses on the real issue.

Watch it. Share it. Let’s change the conversation.

People are "stuck in hotels for months, even years, unable to legally work or rebuild their lives."
While the backlog of initial asylum applications has been reduced, poor-quality decisions mean ppl still wait in hotels as they navigate the appeals process. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Latest migration stats are out!
It's the same, sad story:

❤️‍🩹Health & care visas down 91% in 2 years

👨‍💼🧑‍🏭Non-health related skilled worker visas down by a third in a year

🆘Asylum seeker numbers still at a historic high

Govt will try to paint this as success. Is it?

Failures in care of epileptic man who died in immigration detention, inquest hears Théophile Kaliviotis died in custody at Brook House immigration removal centre near Gatwick Airport

There is nothing to stop the exact same thing happening at Larne House immigration detention centre in N. Ireland. Through FOI, we've uncovered the routine detention of vulnerable groups including pregnant women and people with disabilities. Keep people safe, shut down Larne House.

Home Office to begin removing post-Brexit residence rights from EU citizens whom it believes haven't actually been living in the UK, from March 2026 committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence...

This is a serious and worrying failure by media - Reform need to be pressed on the core legal and moral issues at stake here