2 hours agoShareSaveSam FrancisPolitical reporterShareSavePA MediaThe government is temporarily suspending new applications for a scheme allowing refugees to bring their family members to the UK. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the move, in force from this week, would mean refugees face the same restrictions as other migrants hoping to bring family to join them in the UK.This generally means someone must earn at least £29,000 a year and provide suitable accommodation, while their family member may need to demonstrate a basic level of English.Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said “tweaking the family reunion rules are not enough” to deal with the scale of the UK’s “border security crisis”.It comes on the day Parliament returned after a summer dominated by criticism over the use of hotels for migrants arriving on small boats.On Monday, Cooper announced the government would temporarily suspend new applications under the existing dedicated refugee family reunion route that allows those granted asylum in the UK to bring their family with “no conditions”.Cooper said the rules “were designed many years ago to help families separated by war, conflict and persecution” but are now out of kilter with the UK’s neighbours and restrictions are needed.European countries like Denmark and Switzerland make refugees wait two years before applying to reunite with family, giving them time to find work and housing to support loved ones when they arrive, Cooper said.In contrast, in the UK “those applications come in on average in around a month”, often before the refugee even leaves asylum housing, she said.As a result, Cooper said many refugee families are applying to councils for help to stop them falling into homelessness – making up more than a quarter of homelessness cases in some local authorities.Refugees applying to bring family members to the UK will be covered by regular immigration rules, which set several restrictions.Further reforms to family reunion routes will be outlined later this year, with the aim of introducing changes by the spring.The government has been under pressure after a summer of headlines around small boat crossings and protests over asylum-seeker hotels.Responding to the rule changes, Philp said the government’s “failure” to tackle the border crisis was driving “protests up and down the country”.”Where those protests are peaceful, I support them,” he added.”If this government were serious about fixing this problem, they would know that little tweaks here and there are not enough,” he said.Philp urged the government to revive the scrapped Rwanda plan, which aimed to deter small boats crossings in the Channel by sending some people who arrived in the UK illegally to the east African country.AFP via Getty ImagesThe government has promised to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029. However, in an interview with the BBC earlier, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he “would like to bring that forward”.He told BBC Radio 5Live’s Matt Chorley: “Local people by and large do not want these hotels in their towns, in their place, and nor do I.”But he said the only way to empty them was by working through asylum cases in an “orderly” way, as quickly as possible, and then returning people who should not be in the UK.Cooper said the government was also planning to change the “interpretation” of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an international human rights treaty that has been used by lawyers attempting to halt deportations of failed asylum seekers.There have been growing calls in recent weeks – not only from those on the right, but also from some former Labour ministers – to either withdraw from the convention, or suspend elements of it.The government is adamant it will not do that, but is reviewing how the treaty’s rights to family life apply to immigration cases.The Conservatives have called for the ECHR to be “disa …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nn2 hours agoShareSaveSam FrancisPolitical reporterShareSavePA MediaThe government is temporarily suspending new applications for a scheme allowing refugees to bring their family members to the UK. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the move, in force from this week, would mean refugees face the same restrictions as other migrants hoping to bring family to join them in the UK.This generally means someone must earn at least £29,000 a year and provide suitable accommodation, while their family member may need to demonstrate a basic level of English.Conservative shadow home secretary Chris Philp said “tweaking the family reunion rules are not enough” to deal with the scale of the UK’s “border security crisis”.It comes on the day Parliament returned after a summer dominated by criticism over the use of hotels for migrants arriving on small boats.On Monday, Cooper announced the government would temporarily suspend new applications under the existing dedicated refugee family reunion route that allows those granted asylum in the UK to bring their family with “no conditions”.Cooper said the rules “were designed many years ago to help families separated by war, conflict and persecution” but are now out of kilter with the UK’s neighbours and restrictions are needed.European countries like Denmark and Switzerland make refugees wait two years before applying to reunite with family, giving them time to find work and housing to support loved ones when they arrive, Cooper said.In contrast, in the UK “those applications come in on average in around a month”, often before the refugee even leaves asylum housing, she said.As a result, Cooper said many refugee families are applying to councils for help to stop them falling into homelessness – making up more than a quarter of homelessness cases in some local authorities.Refugees applying to bring family members to the UK will be covered by regular immigration rules, which set several restrictions.Further reforms to family reunion routes will be outlined later this year, with the aim of introducing changes by the spring.The government has been under pressure after a summer of headlines around small boat crossings and protests over asylum-seeker hotels.Responding to the rule changes, Philp said the government’s “failure” to tackle the border crisis was driving “protests up and down the country”.”Where those protests are peaceful, I support them,” he added.”If this government were serious about fixing this problem, they would know that little tweaks here and there are not enough,” he said.Philp urged the government to revive the scrapped Rwanda plan, which aimed to deter small boats crossings in the Channel by sending some people who arrived in the UK illegally to the east African country.AFP via Getty ImagesThe government has promised to end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers by 2029. However, in an interview with the BBC earlier, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he “would like to bring that forward”.He told BBC Radio 5Live’s Matt Chorley: “Local people by and large do not want these hotels in their towns, in their place, and nor do I.”But he said the only way to empty them was by working through asylum cases in an “orderly” way, as quickly as possible, and then returning people who should not be in the UK.Cooper said the government was also planning to change the “interpretation” of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), an international human rights treaty that has been used by lawyers attempting to halt deportations of failed asylum seekers.There have been growing calls in recent weeks – not only from those on the right, but also from some former Labour ministers – to either withdraw from the convention, or suspend elements of it.The government is adamant it will not do that, but is reviewing how the treaty’s rights to family life apply to immigration cases.The Conservatives have called for the ECHR to be “disa …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
