Shabana Mahmood unveils new plan to bring thousands of asylum seekers to Britain under community sponsorship scheme

By DAVID BARRETT, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR Published: 23:37, 26 June 2026 | Updated: 23:37, 26 June 2026 Organisations and community groups will be able to sponsor thousands of asylum seekers to come to Britain under a new scheme unveiled by Shabana Mahmood. The Home Secretary is a pressing ahead with plans – first floated in November – to create new ‘safe and legal routes’ for refugees. In what will be seen as a sop to the Left of the Labour party, Ms Mahmood is prioritising a scheme which will see community organisations sign up to house and support refugees, and find them jobs. It will be based on a Canadian model and the UK’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, which has brought 270,000 Ukrainians here since the start of the war in 2022. The new programme is expected to be open to asylum seekers from conflict zones around the world, with the United Nations refugee agency helping to determine who should come to Britain. Separately, universities will be able to directly sponsor refugees to come here as students from autumn next year. Ms Mahmood also revealed changes to human rights laws will be included in a new immigration Bill, to be published next week. ‘Family life’ claims under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights will be limited to immediate family members – a change also first floated last year. Shabana Mahmood has said a new community sponsorship scheme for refugees will be launched in conjunction with the UN's refugee agency There will also be a ‘new, tougher test’ in deportation cases to ensure human rights claims only outweigh the public interest in ‘the most exceptional cases’, a Home Office spokesman said. Your browser does not support iframes. However, previous attempts to limit the scope of Article 8 have failed to have an impact. Last year 77,000 immigration legal challenges were granted on human rights grounds. The Home Secretary said: ‘I will open new legal routes for genuine refugees, while closing loopholes that have been too often abused. ‘My goal is simple: to ensure we have an asylum system not just today, but for generations to come.’ She added: ‘Britain has always offered sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution. ‘But this system only survives if the public trusts that it is fair, controlled, and not open to abuse.’ The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.