In a speech this week at the Institute for Public Policy Research, Shabana Mahmood said the government would open a “new, safe and legal route ” for student refugees, with the first arrivals due in the autumn.
She said this would be the first of a series of new legal routes to entering the UK – including a new work route and expanded community sponsorship.
“At the same time as showing that immense generosity of spirit, we must wrest control over migration back from the smuggler and restore order and control at our border,” said Mahmood. “That means bearing down on illegal routes to this country, tackling illegal crossings and, as a result, reducing the burden of so many living in asylum accommodation.”
At the same time as showing that immense generosity of spirit, we must wrest control over migration back from the smuggler and restore order and control at our border
Shabana Mahmood, UK Home Secretary
Details of who might be eligible for the new refugee route remain scant. The announcement comes in the immediate aftermath of a new policy putting an “emergency brake” on study visas from nationals of Cameron, Afghanistan, Sudan and Myanmar, with the government saying the decision is a direct response to people abusing the system by entering the country on a legal route and then claiming asylum.
The Home Office claimed that asylum applications from students from the affected countries shot up by more than 470% between 2021 and 2025.
Students from Myanmar, Cameroon, Afghanistan and Sudan have made up comparatively little of the student body in recent years, although numbers of students coming to study in the UK from Myanmar have steadily risen since a civil war broke out in the country in 2021.
According to data from the government, some 133,760 people have claimed asylum in the UK after arriving through legal routes since 2021. It comes amid mounting tensions over immigration, with concerns over ‘small boat’ arrivals – refugees crossing the Channel in small, often dangerous boats – a major discussion point in the UK’s political landscape.
However, experts have drawn attention to the choice of four countries targeted by the new halt on study visas, given that there are larger source countries where people make an asylum claim after arriving in the UK on a visa.
Pakistan, for example, is the country with the largest share of people who enter the UK on visas and later claim asylum, explained Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, during a BBC Radio 4 interview this week.
However, she suggested that the implications of imposing similar restrictions on Pakistan could be widespread, given that many thousands more people enter the county on a visa and don’t go on to claim asylum.
