Updates
A protester holding a placard at a demonstration in Margate, 22 December 2025
Immigration and asylum proposals threaten many people In
November, the home secretary
launched a consultation about proposals to drastically change the immigration system. She also published sweeping proposals on the asylum system without any consultation.
All these proposals are designed to make the lives of migrant people, in various circumstances, more difficult, uncertain and costly. The starting point is that most people allowed or entitled to stay long-term will be made to wait far longer, make more applications, pay more money, and meet stiffer requirements to be permitted to settle. Settlement means being permitted to stay permanently. That status does not guarantee against being stripped of
34 AMNESTY SPRING 2026
permission and deported if the Home Office decides someone’s presence is not conducive to the public good. However, it generally allows people to get on with lives free from immigration restrictions without
needing to make regular
applications for permission to stay. Currently, most people allowed to settle – not all migrants are allowed – are expected to spend at least five years lawfully resident in the UK abiding by requirements of the immigration system. In future, many people will be expected to wait 10, 15, 20 years or even longer before they can settle. High earners – especially people earning more than £125,140 per annum – are largely exempted.
However, refugees, care workers and people who are least wealthy and often most marginalised are expected to wait the longest. Refugees are also expected to apply more frequently to stay for shorter periods, and face being permanently separated from family unless they can get into relatively high paying jobs.
The government is penalising the most disadvantaged in the immigration system and making their integration much harder. In doing this, it is playing to a hostile gallery – encouraging the very prejudices and social divisions it claims to want to heal.
Amnesty strongly opposes these proposals.
© Krisztian Elek/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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