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The home secretary has announced a shakeup of family reunion rules for refugees in a bid to deter small boat crossings.
Yvette Cooper said people smugglers were using the promise of family reunion to promote dangerous journeys across the Channel.
Addressing the House of Commons, Ms Cooper said the government would now suspend new applications under the existing family reunion route for refugees until a new framework had been introduced.
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She highlighted how refugee families arriving in the UK were seeking homelessness assistance, putting pressure on local authorities that was “not sustainable”.
Ms Cooper told MPs the government would deliver an asylum policy statement later this year, which would set out a new system for family migration, with the aim of having “some of those changes in place for the spring”.
She said it would look at contribution requirements and whether there should be longer periods before newly granted refugees can apply for family reunion.
“Even just before the pandemic, refugees who applied to bring family to the UK did so on average more than one or two years after they had been granted protection, long enough for them to be able to get jobs or find housing, or be able to provide their family with some support,” she explained.
“In Denmark and Switzerland, currently, those granted humanitarian protection are not able to apply to bring family for at least two years after protection has been granted. But here in the UK now, however, those applications come in on average in around a month after protection has been granted, often even before a newly granted refugee has left asylum accommodation.
“As a consequence, refugee families who arrive are far more likely to be seeking homelessness assistance.
“And some councils are finding that more than a quarter of their family homelessness applications are linked to refugee family reunion. That…
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