Afghanistan Peace Campaign 
Outside such schemes, the UK does not make it easy for refugees to reach its island shores. There are no visas for those seeking asylum, so every year, tens of thousands make perilous journeys to get here, often making the final miles by boat with the help of unscrupulous smugglers. The hazards mean the make-up of Afghans seeking asylum in the UK is heavily skewed towards young men, who are culturally more likely to take the risks of clandestine travel.
However, for those seeking asylum, the initial generosity of the UK has waned. Following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, in 2022, 98 per cent of Afghans who requested asylum were accepted as refugees; by 2025 that had dropped to 34 per cent (Home Office), as more stringent eligibility criteria were applied. The UK government considers the security situation in Afghanistan no longer as severe as previously assessed, and that risks to claimants must be judged on an individual basis (Guidance here). This means most Afghan claimants are no longer believed to be fleeing persecution. Afghans who are rejected are not – yet – being sent back to Afghanistan, but are left in legal limbo.
In November 2025, the government proposed radical changes to its immigration system, which will make refugees’ paths to British citizenship longer, more costly and more complex, including most of those Afghans who have arrived since 2021. It will also affect their chances for family reunion. As part of the same drive, as of March 2026, Afghans became one of four nations no longer eligible for student visas, while people from Afghanistan were singled out as no longer eligible for skilled worker visas either (Home Office).
This more hostile reception is not unique to Afghans trying to make a new life in the UK; similar struggles face migrants of most nationalities. While the UK has seen significant numbers of asylum seekers in recent years, stretching an already tight economy, the reforms say as much about a domestic — and global — wave of political populism which scapegoats refugees and migrant workers. The combined effect is that for Afghans seeking a new life, the UK is becoming an increasingly unwelcoming place.[1]
This report is based on thirteen interviews, conducted between September 2025 and February 2026 — eight with Afghans who have come to the UK since 2021 and five with immigration lawyers and people working with newly arrived Afghans, as well as a review of policy and data. Since the experiences of Afghans vary according to their path to legal status, the report will start by looking at the situation of those who got humanitarian resettlement, before looking at Afghan asylum seekers and refugees, followed by their shared problems around employment, study, mental health, as well as their contrasting experiences of welcome and hostility that Afghans receive. It does not address the situation of Afghans who came on work or family visas, or those who came prior to 2021.[2]
The easier path? Resettlement routes
A large group of Afghans came to the UK under resettlement routes, which, rather than providing refugee status, provided Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK as soon as an application was approved. Almost 38,000 Afghans were resettled under three schemes: the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP), run by the Ministry of Defence, for Afghans who worked with the UK, the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), mostly for vulnerable groups and scholars and a third, initially secret policy, described below (UK Home Office).
Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP)
ARAP was for Afghans who had worked for the UK government, such as military interpreters who would be at risk of Taliban retaliation. The largest number came in the initial evacuation in 2021, with the scheme closed in July 2025 (Ministry of Defence). Candidates were vetted by the UK’s defence and foreign ministries.[3]
The scheme was criticised by some human rights advocates for narrow or unclear parameters, including the requirement that to be eligible someone needed to have held a “publicly recognisable” role and have contributed to the “success of UK operations” (see this 2023 report by the legal organisation, Justice).
The closure of the scheme is being challenged by lawyers, including Jamie Bell, who said, “Its abrupt closure has left these individuals with no safe and legal routes to the UK” (Duncan Lewis Solicitors). The UK Defence Minister, John Healey, had, however, warned in December 2024 that he considered the scheme had “fulfilled its original purpose,” according to a Home Office briefing.
Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS)
From January 2022, ACRS offered resettlement to around 5,000 Afghans who had already been evacuated to the UK in 2021, with a ceiling of resettling up to 20,000 more. This scheme also closed in July 2025, having resettled more than 12,800 Afghans (Migration Observatory). The ACRS had three main categories:
- At-risk individuals who were selected by the UK government, mostly evacuated or notified in 2021, as well as subsequent family reunifications.
- Vulnerable groups such as women and girls at risk and members of ethnic and religious minorities, mostly referred by the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, from third countries (mostly Pakistan or Iran).
- Afghans who worked with the British Council, or the British security company GardaWorld, or Afghan alumni of the Chevening master’s programme. This pathway was suspended in June 2023.
The scheme was also criticised by NGOs and lawyers for its delays, inconsistent decisions and narrow eligibility criteria, as well as its failure to reach its ceiling of 20,000 (see reports by the Afghan Pro Bono Initiative and Safe Passage). A government minister, Luke Pollard, defended the UK’s efforts, telling the House of Commons that the combined relocation schemes had offered “one of the most generous Afghan resettlement programmes in the world.”
A third, ‘secret’ route – Afghanistan Response Route (ARR)
A third route for relocating Afghan nationals to the UK was only revealed by the government in July 2025, though it had been in operation since April 2024 (BBC). It was set up after the personal details of almost 19,000 Afghans who had asked for refuge in the UK after the Taliban takeover was accidentally leaked in February 2022 by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (BBC). This extraordinary data breach, which came amid widespread reports about assassinations of those associated with the Republic’ security forces and international military, put many Afghans at risk (NYT). The existence of this scheme, as well as the fact of the data breach, was subject to a ‘super-injunction’ – a media blackout, which also banned disclosure of the injunction itself (Guardian).
An estimated 7,355 Afghans will be resettled in the UK through ARR, including 1,531 individuals whose data was leaked, plus family members (National Audit Office). Since the data leak involved applicants to ARAP and ACRS, many of those affected were likely already included in one of the two other resettlement schemes.
This avenue was closed, along with ACRS and ARAP, in July 2025, despite concerns that some Afghans remain in jeopardy. The government argued that those at risk had been given years to apply (UK parliament). However, there are plausible reasons why some at risk might have been wrongly rejected, not least the low levels of documentation that is common in Afghanistan. There are also reasons why someone might not have previously applied for resettlement to the UK but now finds themselves in need of protection, including those who had decided to settle in Pakistan or Iran but are now at risk because of the mass forced returns of Afghans from those countries (FIDH). Others might have been waiting for humanitarian protection routes to other countries, some of which have closed, such as those to the United States in April 2025 (AAN).
Director of the Scottish based Afghan Human Rights Foundation, Naveen Asif, told AAN that he knew people affected by the data breach who remain “very worried,” both in the UK and in Afghanistan. “Even when people are here, they are worried about their families – in Afghanistan, there is a culture where if your enemy cannot find you, they go after your family. If you are in Britain, and if the Taliban find out, they will punish your family.”
Rona Panjsheri, who supports Afghan refugees in Suffolk, in eastern England, says she works with one woman whose husband’s name was leaked. She says the family was so worried that they stopped going out and became “very depressed and isolated.” A February 2026 survey by Refugee Legal Support found that of 231 respondents who had been notified of the leak by the British government, 49 reported that a family member or colleague had been killed as a direct result, while almost 90 per cent reported risks and threats to their family members, ranging from house searches to violence. Most respondents said the information provided by the government had not answered their security concerns, as captured by this respondent, who was relocated:
My family – who remain in Afghanistan – are terrified. They ask me every day: Are we in danger? Did you share our names, phone numbers, addresses, or photos in your emails to the UK? Could the Taliban find us because of this?
Afghan seeking asylum in the UK
In addition to the cohort of Afghans who received humanitarian resettlement, from 2021 to 2025, over 37,000 Afghans and their dependents claimed asylum in the UK (see table below). Individuals can only claim asylum on arrival in the UK and then will wait months or over a year for an initial decision (Migration Observatory).
UK Home Office (Table Asy_D01 Asy_D02).
While an individual waits to hear if they are eligible, they are an asylum seeker, with very limited rights or privileges (more on that later). If they are granted asylum and given refugee status, they can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain. This is a non-revokable, settled status. A subsequent application for British citizenship can then be made as soon as one year after that.
There is no way to claim asylum from outside the UK, which means most Afghans seeking asylum make unofficial and often very dangerous journeys to reach the UK, travelling over 3,000 miles, typically involving getting across Iran, Turkey and continental Europe. Small numbers hide in vehicles to cross into the UK, but most end up in small boats to cross the English Channel. The numbers of Afghans arriving by small boats peaked in 2022, when over 9,000 made it to the UK. They remained the largest group of those arriving by boat until 2024 (Home Office, see also table below).
UK Home Office (Table IER_D01)
The boats — often no more than dinghies — are overcrowded and unsafe, but still set off to try and cross the busiest shipping lane in the world. Every year there are deaths, despite lifeboats and other vessels saving many in peril: in 2024, for example, British lifeboats rescued 1,371 people (RNLI).
One interviewee described the impact of losing two family members in one of these disasters, in which 18 others were lost:
It was probably the most difficult day of my life, learning about their deaths after hearing the voices of my loved ones in distressed voice messages, telling us they are alive. Every one of them, saying we’re alive. Each one of them sent those voice messages.
A new crime of endangerment of life, targeting smugglers and those piloting boats, came into force in January 2026 in the UK, with an Afghan national the first person charged with the new offence (Crown Prosecution Service). Advertising illegal journeys to the UK has also been criminalised.
As noted above, the difficulty of the journey, combined with particular dangers facing women, means that it is mostly young men making boat crossings. In the first nine months of 2025, only 5 per cent of Afghans arriving in small boats were adult women (compared to 25.5 per cent for all nationalities), while 85 per cent were men aged between 18 and 40 (UK Home Office).
A smaller number of Afghans claimed asylum after coming to the UK on study or work visas. However, as part of its wider effort to reduce what it called “visa abuse,” the government announced in March 2026 that Afghans would no longer be given student or work visas, noting that 95 per cent of Afghans on study visas claimed asylum between 2021 and September 2025. Afghanistan was the only country singled out for the work visa ban, though three other countries were also included in the study visa ban – Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan.
After the return of the Taliban to power, several new schemes to help Afghan women study in British universities were set up. The government’s own global Chevening scholarship has also enabled many Afghans, men and women, to come and study in the UK. The ban on study visas closes yet another door for Afghan women wanting the higher education they are denied at home, and also – for now – blocks one of the few legal and safe ways for them to get to the UK and claim asylum, although the government described it as a “brake” that will be “regularly reviewed” (Home Secretary Shahbana Mahmood’s statement).
A long wait in ‘asylum hotels’
Even when someone makes it to the UK, they are far from secure. Many of those who claim asylum face over a year while they wait for their application to be considered. For the first year, asylum seekers have no right to work, but they can access free health care and children have a right to education. The UK government provides a subsistence level of financial support and temporary accommodation, mostly in budget hotels, often sharing rooms with strangers. To put this in context, however, there is a shortage of social housing generally in Britain and a problem with homelessness: as of 31 March 2026 (latest figures) 131,000 households in the UK were living in temporary accommodation (UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government), while the average waiting time for council housing is 2.9 years, increasing to 6.6 years in Greater London (LocalGov).
The use of hotels to house asylum seekers became a political flashpoint in 2024 and 2025. There was some justification for consternation about the increased use and expense of hotel accommodation: in 2019, there were 423 asylum seekers of all nationalities in hotels; four years later it had jumped to over 50,000, with Afghans among the largest number of those housed in hotels. The cost of hotel accommodation also soared: from £64 (USD 85) a night per person in 2020/21 to £170 (USD 234) 2022/23, falling back in 2025 to £119 (USD 159); at the same time, the daily cost of other accommodation types has remained broadly stable, at an average of £27 (USD 36) a night (Migration Observatory). (See also reports by the University of Bristol, University of Durham and a parliamentary enquiry report, including detail on eye-wateringly high profits made by four big hotel contractors.) Beyond the cost, however, public and political concerns were exacerbated by the fact that those housed in these hotels are predominantly male, given the demographic tilt of asylum seekers. The issue of asylum hotels was seized on by right-wing anti-immigrant groups, and there were simmering protests outside hotels all over the UK in the summers of 2024 and 2025 (Reuters, Al Jazeera).
For many Afghans, this has felt like a stark display of hostility to their very presence in the UK. Naveen Asif of the Afghan Human Rights Foundation, based in Scotland, said he understands how British people and the media can get the wrong idea about the hotels, which create an idea of luxury, “but living in that condition, isolated from their communities, not allowed to work, sharing rooms with strangers while their mental health gets worse and worse, it’s very difficult.”
While Scotland has a better reputation for tolerance towards refugees and newcomers than many parts of England, Asif said anti-immigrant mobilisation is also “spreading rapidly” in Scotland, with weekly protests against asylum seekers, often outside hotels. He recalled a protest in Falkirk in central Scotland in front of a hotel which was known to be housing asylum seekers, most of whom were Afghan. He said that right in front of police, “there were banners which said, ‘Kill them all and let god decide what to do with them.’” He said fear is widespread:
I get calls every day from asylum seekers who are scared that they might get attacked. You can’t provide security; you can only advise them to talk to the police. People shouldn’t feel what they felt in Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan, they shouldn’t be scared here, this is a free country. People have the right to express their views, but they have no right to beat or threaten people.
Former Afghan Minister of Women’s Affairs Hasina Safi spent three years housed in a hotel on the outskirts of London with her family. She is uncomplaining about it, telling AAN that after being forced to leave Afghanistan, “everywhere was the same for me.” She was initially worried by the protests, but found the counter-protests, in support of refugees, very moving: “On one side of the street, there were banners saying no to immigrants, other side, we welcome refugees… it was quite peaceful… I saw young children saying, ‘We welcome refugees,’ which made me cry.” Safi said the use of hotels that she witnessed was, if nothing else, highly inefficient:
To be honest, just in the hotel we were housed in – so much money was spent on this group, if that money was given to each person individually, they could have bought a house. It’s also about thinking about the efficiency of the budget which can help.
The government is phasing out the use of hotels to house asylum seekers in favour of cheaper alternatives such as disused army bases, which can house hundreds at a time (BBC). However, they are facing the same protests from local people near the new sites (BBC).
If an asylum seeker is still awaiting a decision on their status after a year, they can apply for the right to work, if the delay is judged not to be their fault. Even if successful, they are only granted the right to work in a narrow range of jobs where labour is deemed to be in short supply (UK Parliament). Although for government finances, it would be better for asylum seekers to be working and paying taxes, successive governments have feared it would incentivise migrants to come to Britain to seek asylum (House of Commons). However, the inability to work legally frustrates many. Hadia Azizi is an Afghan who was given settled status in 2023, who now works for a local council in London, supporting refugees, who said it is particularly hard for young men to remain jobless:
Employment is a huge challenge for many Afghans here. Officially, many cannot work but most work illegally because they need to send home remittances – they have to support their families back home. It’s a big emotional and financial burden, particularly on men. When you’re in Afghanistan, your expectation and imagination about life here is very different from reality. But these poor men, they have to work illegally and send money home.
Azizi says many end up in the informal economy, earning cash as van drivers, doing deliveries or removals, or working in Afghan restaurants or supermarkets, or in hawalas.
Legal support
Interviewees described how hard it is to navigate the complexities of UK bureaucracy. This is compounded by the current crisis in the UK’s immigration system, which has a massive backlog and a shortage of state supported legal aid (see this 2026 parliamentary report). Farhad Basharyar, a former diplomat under the Republic who came to the UK in 2021 and claimed asylum, found that even though he was a lawyer with fluent English, he still struggled: “There is a lack of legal aid, firstly. The second thing is – once you find legal aid, a lot of the solicitors aren’t helpful.”
One lawyer, Roberta Haslan from Bindmans, told AAN that the general shortage of legal aid lawyers means that, increasingly, they were seeing asylum seekers without any form of legal representation. Without language skills, or any legal education or understanding of the British system, “people are really struggling,” she said.
Asylum approvals plummet
The need for a lawyer is becoming more acute as acceptance rates for asylum seekers plummet. Following the fall of the Republic, the UK government gave near blanket approval to all Afghans who made it to the UK to claim asylum, assuming any Afghan fleeing was an opponent of the Taliban and had a legitimate fear of persecution Since October 2021, almost 36,000 Afghans have claimed asylum in the UK (Home Office briefing). The initial approval rate for Afghan claims peaked at 98 and 99 per cent in 2022 and 2023, but dropped to 34 per cent by the year ending December 2025 (Migration Observatory, figure 5).
The change is a result of a shift in UK guidance to immigration officers, which removed the default assumption that returnees would be at risk of reprisal from the Taliban. Rather than a blanket approval for Afghans, it placed the burden of proof on each person to demonstrate the individual risk they faced. Those deemed “likely to be at risk from the Taliban” include former members of the Republic’s security forces or who worked with the international military, as well as members of groups deemed to be at greater risk, including women, Hazaras, religious minorities, journalists and human rights defenders.
While the initial grant rate of 34 per cent has sunk to a low level for Afghans, many will appeal. At present, almost two thirds of (all) asylum rejections are overturned, either through a successful appeal or because the government withdraws its rejection (Guardian, Free Movement). Jamie Bell said that, for many Afghan cases, he has seen, “the quality of decision making is appalling,” with plenty of grounds for appeal. Bell represented one woman, known as Mina, whose initial rejection of an asylum claim was overturned in June 2025 (Guardian). For Afghan men, however, the prospects of rejections being upheld are far higher.
Rejected but not deported
For those Afghans who are rejected, the situation is grim. Already, thousands of Afghans have been refused asylum, leaving them without the right to employment and with limited access to financial support or education.[4] They are, at present, unlikely to be deported, since enforced and voluntary returns to Afghanistan have been suspended. This is partly because the UK government does not recognise the Islamic Emirate, which, in turn, does not recognise travel documents issued by the Afghan embassy in London (Guardian).
The UK did, however, deport at least eight Afghans who had been convicted of crimes between 2021 and 2024.[5] Growing numbers of European countries have been deporting Afghan offenders, including Germany, which announced a deal with the Emirate in February 2026 to allow it to deport Afghan offenders directly to Afghanistan, where previously they had sent them via Qatar (AFP/CTV). In October 2025, twenty countries called upon the European Union to seek a formal return agreement with Afghanistan, to allow for deportations (Euronews).
Deportation of failed asylum seekers who are not convicted of crimes is not inconceivable. While the UK has not yet crossed that line, some British opposition politicians have proposed that Afghans – even Afghan women – should be eligible for deportation (Sky).
Until something shifts politically, however, Afghans who are refused asylum face untold months or years in limbo, without any prospects of integration. In contrast, as soon as someone is granted refugee status, they get the right to work and study. This does not mean life is necessarily straightforward, as discussed next.
Afghans with settled status – rights with more hurdles
Once someone is granted refugee status, under the existing system, they enjoy the same rights as those Afghans who came via the resettlement schemes described above, in terms of the right to work, study, claim benefits and family reunion. Once recognised as refugees, they are asked to find their own housing, moving out of government-funded asylum accommodation, and to find work. They may also be eligible for the same benefits as UK citizens such as Universal Credit (if unemployed or on a low wage) or help with rent (housing benefit) (Citizens Advice). Both asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to free health care. Much of this will be more restrictive under the 2026 reforms.
Having a right to work or study, however, is often a long way from being able to realise that entitlement. Afghans interviewed by AAN talked about a myriad of difficulties, often interrelated, from limited opportunities for employment, to housing shortages and limited or slow educational opportunities.
Sorya is from Kabul, and arrived in the UK in December 2024 after a perilous crossing by boat at the age of 21. In Afghanistan, she had almost completed a diploma in midwifery in Herat when the Taliban ordered midwifery and female nursing students not to return to university in early December 2024, preventing her from taking her final exams. Getting into college in the UK has been a struggle:
Everywhere I ask how I can continue my studies. I left my family, I left everything just so I can come here and study in this country. But here I can’t find my way, it’s really stressful, it’s been 11 months that I’ve lived here, but I can’t manage anything here. … I’ve said to lots of organisations that I want to study, maybe training or university – anything at all. I want to work, I want to study, but it’s not important to them.
Getting her refugee status added to these problems, since it meant her temporary accommodation was withdrawn. She only got one months’ notice: “They said to me was: ‘This house is for asylum seekers, and now you are a refugee. You need to go and find a place for yourself.’” The council only offered her a house with three single men she did not know and which she could not accept. Then, when she was offered a place at a college, she lost it, because she did not have housing.
Educational opportunities can be hard to access. Naveen Asif says there are huge waiting lists to enrol in college, so Afghans he knows have waited “a year or more,” with similar access difficulties for community-based language classes. Educational or and professional qualifications may not be recognised as of similar standard, with similar problems faced with professional qualifications, meaning the need to re-train and re-qualify, often a very expensive and complicated process, and all that on top of getting the necessary fluency in English. Without adequate training or language-learning opportunities, Rona Panjsheri says refugees can only do the most menial jobs:
I work with a lady who’d studied at university, but she struggled with the official at the job centre, who said that “language can’t be an excuse” and told her to [take] a cleaning job. It was very hard for her to go from her high goals to cleaning toilets. She became depressed quite quickly. It was so humiliating for her. It’s not just her – many refugees face this.
Hassan (not his real name) was a medical doctor in Afghanistan who arrived in the UK in August 2024 and was granted refugee status. He was an experienced doctor in Afghanistan and had a medical degree which is recognised in the UK, though he needed to qualify as a General Practitioner (GP) before he can practice, which takes around 18 months. In the meantime, work opportunities have been a struggle:
After receiving my refugee status, I tried to find any type of work. I joined a company as a warehouse operative, but it was very difficult for me because I have no experience of that, though I have ten years’ experience as a medical doctor in Afghanistan. I worked in a warehouse for around two months until around Christmas, when they fired 25 employees and I was one of them.
For Hasina Safi, this is her second experience of being a refugee. Since arriving in the UK, she began and completed a masters’ degree and is more sanguine about the diversity of experiences:
I’m in contact with different women located in different parts of UK, and most of them have access to whatever they need – health, education, many things. There are women with big health needs, who had limited support there [Afghanistan] who’ve received far more support here, which is free, and there are women who can go out and go to the park. For them it’s fun, they have more freedom. But then there are women who were working there [Afghanistan] and came here and they became housewives, which leaves a big gap in their lives. So, there are very different experiences.
This challenge, of adjusting to a new life and identity in the UK, is something that another, Sonia Eqbal, who came through a resettlement programme, was open about experiencing. After a successful career in Afghanistan working in international development, she focused on supporting her family while they resettled, while her own mental health took a blow:
What I had discounted was the level of trauma I’d brought. I was trying to deny and suppress it, but it crept into me. That sense of purpose that had driven me for the past twenty years, that had driven me since I started college, I lost it. I’m trying really hard to find it again, and to find a sense of identity. Who am I anymore?… here I am with little ability to impact even my own life.
Some interviewees spoke of the difficulty in accessing mental health care, though this reflects wider shortages in the system, as Naveen Asif recognised: “I know asylum seekers who are begging to see someone about their mental health issues. But not even local people can access mental health specialists.”
The 2026 reforms: the road for refugees will be longer and harder
For Afghans who receive their refugee status the situation is – or was – brighter. Until late in 2025, someone whose asylum claim was recognised was granted refugee status for five years, after which they could apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). As soon as a year after that, if they passed a citizenship test, they could apply for citizenship. However, the proposed reforms, issued in November 2025 and set to be brought into law in stages through 2026 and 2027, throw this system up into the air and would affect any migrant who has not yet secured an Indefinite Leave to Remain.
The most significant change is that it will take up to twenty years, rather than five, for a refugee to be granted settlement. Secondly, during that time, their status as a refugee, which is now described in the government’s proposals as “core protection,” would be reviewed every two-and-a-half years. This means that if the government’s assessment of risk in a home country alters over that twenty-year period, so do the prospects of an individual keeping their leave to remain.
The route to permanent settlement is also being tightened for migrants arriving on work, study or family visas, with higher language and earnings requirements for all and the standard wait time increased from five to ten years (with some notable exceptions, see this briefing by the Migration Observatory). The government is seeking to reduce the “pace and scale of migration,” as well as the assumption that settlement is “near automatic” (statement by the Home Secretary).
For Afghan refugees who have arrived since 2021, this means that they may be kept in a state of limbo for up to two decades, repeatedly having to prove their right to remain in the UK and unsure as to whether they will be granted the right to stay indefinitely. They may be able to “earn reductions,” according to the new policy proposal, by getting a job or being accepted for certain kinds of study. Automatic family reunion would not flow from core protection status, though historically, family reunification for refugees has been treated as a distinct right, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is blunt about the policy changes, which she described in parliament as “the most sweeping asylum reforms in modern times,” designed to make the UK a less attractive place to seek asylum. The result will be that “refugee status becomes temporary – lasting only until a refugee can safely return home.”
The underlying assumption is that by raising the bar to asylum seekers, far fewer people will make the unauthorised journey to the UK. The factors that influence asylum seekers’ destinations, however, are highly complex and hotly contested (Electronic Immigration Network). Regardless of these new policies, pull factors of the English language and social networks in the UK will likely still be a draw for many.
For Afghans who already have refugee status in the UK, the greatest shock is that the government intends to apply the new policy to those who have arrived since 2021, even though, when they received their refugee status, they were told they would only have to wait five years to get settled status (Parliamentary Briefing).
Several interviewees told AAN that the prospect of losing their five-year pathway to settled status was devastating, including Farhad Basharyar, who was less than a year away from permanent status in the UK.
After a couple of years living in this country and our kids going to school here, we integrated in this country, so this, it’s a big punishment. It’s a big punishment for those who think of a bright future and are thinking “Once I get citizenship I can be more energetic to work, to settle in this country.” If we receive this news that the government is deciding to put more pressure on us, we lose our hope and we lose our energy to work hard.
As a lawyer, Farhad also believes the proposals would be unlawful:
I’ve already spent four years here. In one year, I will be applying for ILR [Indefinite Leave to Remain] so if they implement this white paper, or this new rule, of course it will impact on me and people like me, so it’s not fair and it’s not lawful as well… There is one principle that says that laws should not be retroactive, so that laws cannot be applied to those events, situations and acts which occurred in the past, and prior to the implementation of the law.
Another refugee, Sorya, was similarly dismayed that the reforms could mean a fifteen or twenty year wait for security:
If I’m not completely sure I can settle in this country, how can I start, how can I plan for the future? How can I plan my work? For someone who wants a car here, or a house here, how can they manage this if they don’t have citizenship? For me it’s a huge problem because I want to go to university. How can I take a loan without citizenship? I was very stressed when I heard about this, and all the people in my position are like me – they are stressed about this and saying, “What do we need to do? What about our future? What will happen to us?”
Family reunification
Another enormous blow for many was the suspension of the Refugee Family Reunion route in September 2025, which was already causing great difficulties for many Afghans. Under existing rules, refugees as well as those with settled status have the right to request family reunification for their immediate family, comprising spouse and child dependants. This was already a meagre definition of family for many Afghans, whose extended families tend to be more interdependent than is culturally typical the UK. So, for example, an individual’s parents, even if they are financially dependent, may not be eligible for reunification, except in “extreme circumstances,” often health related.
However, with the Refugee Family Reunion visa suspended for new applicants, existing refugees’ families are left in limbo. This is a temporary suspension: further Home Office announcements on the issue are expected, but the expectation is that it will become harder for refugees to bring their families to the UK (UK parliament). There is a lack of clarity around these reforms, but it appears the changes would bring family reunification for refugees into line with citizens and settled residents who, to bring a spouse into the country, need to show they have a combined annual income of £29,000 (USD 38,800), with additional costs for children, and for the partner to have a good knowledge of English (details here). That salary level, said Migration Observatory, is higher than comparable countries in Europe, which means some applicants “will never expect to find jobs that earn above the threshold.” For many refugee families, whose situations are typically far more precarious than most citizens, it will simply be an impossibly high bar (for more see this briefing by the NGO Right to Remain).
Hassan, the medical doctor who arrived in the UK in August 2024 has been granted refugee status. He is very worried about his wife and three young children, aged two, four and six, who are in Pakistan:
I have heard that there will be changes to family reunification rules and that family members will have to go through normal [visa application] routes, and pay fees, have at least 29 or 30,000-pound income and pass other requirements. It’s very difficult for families to be separated, especially when they have children under five years old… I find it very difficult because I’m very safe and secure in the UK – I have food here, I have access to healthcare here, but it depresses me and I can’t sleep because I think about my children who have nothing.
Racism and fear
The policy reforms are driven by a melange of factors, from legitimate concerns about strains on public services to distorted assumptions about the numbers of ‘legal’ versus ‘illegal’ migration routes, confusion about how the immigration system works, and a global backdrop of anti-immigrant sentiment becoming more politically mainstream across the UK, the rest of Europe and the United States (Guardian, Mixed Migration Centre).
Young men are often the focus of scaremongering, with tabloid newspapers jumping on stories of crimes that are said to involve asylum seekers or migrant workers. Afghans have sometimes been singled out in media and social media reporting, with one news cycle in the summer of 2025 exemplifying some of the problems with such reports. In August, a notoriously anti-immigration politician, Robert Jenrick MP, accused Afghans, wrongly, of being “twenty times more likely to be committed to a sexual crime than a British national” (Guardian). Jenrick was drawing on a report which used data from the Metropolitan police in London, which showed that Afghans were charged (rather than convicted) with a comparatively large number of sexual offences. However, the claim was based on dodgy statistics: it used sexual crime figures for 2018-2024, but population figures from 2021, thereby missing the subsequent significant increase in the number of Afghans living in the UK, and ignored the higher proportion of young men among Afghans than in the general population, important given the greater likelihood of offending by young men (InfoMigrants, Sky, New Statesman). Nor did the data take account potential biases in policing, with studies showing that ethnic minorities, particularly those in contact with immigration services, can face disproportionate police checks (BBC, Liberty).
Naveen Asif said the negative news reports have demonised all Afghan men:
Afghans in the UK are accused of being sex offenders, deemed to be backwards people, there’s hardly any support available, it is a shock to many who thought the British government had respect for Afghans. Many Afghans are highly talented, but they face a lot of discrimination, racism and scapegoating. All refugees face discrimination, but especially Afghans. Yes, we don’t deny that there are a few who maybe commit crimes, but there is the rule of law, it doesn’t need to be based on your race.
Hadia Azizi said the subject was hard to discuss, but acknowledged that
there is a lot of domestic violence in our community, as well as sexual abuse and harassment. It should be taken seriously. But this doesn’t mean that they should make the immigration laws stricter, they can use other measures to respond to crimes.
She fears that the debate overshadows why she and so many Afghans are in the UK:
I want people to understand that people who are fleeing war or a group of barbarians like the Taliban, they are fleeing to have a safe place to live… They are seeking refuge because they don’t have another place to go. Then you find you are being judged, being labelled in the news, being counted as a number not as a human being with emotions. You’re just a statistic in the news, it’s dehumanising.
While some settle, many face harder times ahead
The experience of Afghans in the UK is as diverse as the Afghans themselves. Some thrive, but many are struggling. Those who are in the UK as part of a humanitarian resettlement programmes had the good fortune to receive settled status upon arrival and to bring their families with them, something which looks even more halcyon given the uncertainty their countrymen and women with refugee status are now facing. Sonia Eqbal says she holds on to the feeling of relief she felt when she was first offered humanitarian protection:
While we see a lot of issues and problems with the policies here, there are lots of things that we’re not happy about. Still, we remember, coming from crisis, almost losing our hope and humanity, to receive an offer [of humanitarian protection] like that was massive. I remember telling myself that whether it works out or not, that gesture was big enough to make me feel some humanity again.
While acknowledging that many Afghans were having “tough times” because of the language barriers, employment and housing, Hasina Safi was determined “not to hide the good” that she’s encountered. She uses the garden of her new family house as an example:
When I came to this house, the garden of this house was like a trash corner, but today, it’s become a beautiful garden, because volunteers came, they brought roses, they planted them, it’s beautiful. This is humanity.
But for Afghans who might have been months away from getting settled status and the near prospect of applying for citizenship, it is hard to look ahead without trepidation. This has “a big impact on the mental health of people,” said Farhad Basharyar. “Some people are very stressed.” Not only might they face another fifteen or more years before they get settled status, but the assumption that they would also be able to see their family settle in the UK is in doubt. The greatest uncertainty, however, faces those Afghans whose refugee status has been rejected. For them, neither integration nor deportation is possible for the foreseeable future.
Edited by Kate Clark, Jelena Bjelica and Fabrizio Foschini
References
| ↑1 | To give an idea of the numbers of Afghans living in the UK, the 2001 census recorded 14,875 people born in Afghanistan and living in the UK, with 7 in ten living in London (BBC). The 2011 census recorded 63,5000 people born in Afghanistan, overwhelmingly in England. The 2021 census recorded 86,000 Afghan-born residents in England and Wales (Muslim Council of Britain). |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | A note on terms: a refugee is someone who has fled war, violence, conflict or persecution and has crossed an international border in search of safety. A person seeking asylum is someone who has left their country of origin and has applied for protection, but whose claim has not yet been legally concluded. Leave to remain is the term used for non-UK nationals who are given permission to stay in the UK for a limited period of time. After a qualifying period of residency in the UK, someone may be eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR), though this is in flux, as discussed in the report. For more, see The Truth About Asylum by the Refugee Council or these definitions by the United Nations. |
| ↑3 | There was some controversy about more than 2,000 Afghans who served in specialist units alongside UK special forces having their request for protection sponsorship denied, apparently by UK Special Forces officials, as well as delays in reviews of those rejections. There was speculation that this might relate to ongoing inquiries into alleged war crimes by UK special forces in Afghanistan, since the Afghan partner forces might have witnesses or been party to alleged war crimes. For more see a report by this author from December 2025, Who Dares, Kills? Alleged war crimes and cover-ups by Britain’s special forces, p29-30. |
| ↑4 | Failed Afghan asylum seekers who cannot be deported were entitled to basic accommodation and support, known as “Section 4,” which was more restrictive than the UK’s main welfare system. Claimants in private housing were given £49.18 to cover food, clothing and toiletries those in hotels where meals were provided got £9.95 (UK Home Office). This was replaced in March 2026 with a “conditional approach,” so that those caught working illegally, breaking the law, or refusing deportation can have support revoked (UK Home Office). This may not apply to Afghans, however, because they have no means of being deported. Education must be provided to children up to age 16 who are refused asylum, though they can still face deterrents (Asylum Information Database). The rules in Scotland are somewhat different (Scottish Refugee Council). |
| ↑5 | This is based on a Freedom of Information request by Hyphen journalist, Samir Jeraj, who shared the information he received from the Home Office with this author by email. |