Will you sign up to the new refugee sponsorship scheme?

[JoyousOpalLemur]

The Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is apparently announcing next week a new refugee sponsorship scheme.

It would allow households to privately sponsor refugees from conflict zones.

Applications open this autumn, with the aim of resettling more than 10,000 people.

It’s modelled on Canada’s scheme and the Homes for Ukraine programme.

Sponsors would commit to providing financial, emotional and practical support.

What do people think? I just can't help thinking that with the current pressures on housing, schools, GPs and local services, how this will actually work in practice? Has anyone been involved in the Ukraine sponsorship scheme and can share what it was really like day-to-day?

Curious to hear everyone’s views.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/home-secretary-announce-scheme-refugees-uk-lgdr8ff25

Asylum seekers may be undocumented. Refugees are those given leave to enter or remain. In this case, leave to enter. They will not be undocumented at that point and will have met home office requirements to remain permanently.

The idea of this kind of scheme is to grant refugee status while people are abroad, e.g. from refugee camps in Pakistan serving Afghan families, instead of making small boats the only option and then funding people as asylum seekers while investigating their claims.

Out of interest why would you only host a single female and not a male?

I would say everyone in the household would have to be happy to participate in a scheme like this. It's not about winning battles

Mandatory? Tinfoil much?

Do you always let your husband control you?

Why are your husband's reasons for not wanting to take a refugee into your house? Is it because they are likely to be male?

If you really want to help them you would be insisting on bringing a female refugee into your house. Would that work?

I hope it's tinfoil but who knows these days.

Let's see 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well duh. I believe people with mental health issues should be supported but that means hospitals and supported living not a room in my house. I believe victims of violence should be supported but that means in refuges not in my house. I believe drug addicts should be given places to detox… but not in my house.

Everyday people aren’t prepared, trained or able to support complex social cases in their own home. That’s not how it works.

Also those Afghan men that are coming here on boats left those women behind.

Maybe all these refugees coming heres should only be women.

Where are you envisaging people will be processed? Which off shore facility?

It’s good you want to do it, although the Sudanese man in Belfast recently in the press was a refugee.

I don't have a husband. You're talking to the wrong poster.

If I were living with a husband or anyone else, family member, child, flatmate, obviously I wouldn't bring anyone else into the space without their enthusiastic consent. Their reasons could be selfish, untilitarian, cautious, whatever. It doesn't matter.

Lots of people would not want to do this. That's obvious, and fine. That doesn't mean other people would be wrong to do it.

Why hit a refugee and not a struggling British homeless person?

Some might say that the ‘men’ in the countries of origin, may not permit the women to leave on their own.

Some might say that the ‘men’ should go ahead, first.

People are currently processed at refugee camps, e.g. in Pakistan for Afghan refugees. It takes a while. I know people who have got visas though this route. Processing a Calais would be helpful too.

Yes, I know about the Belfast attack. I also know Sudanese and other refugees and asylum seekers in my own area. A scheme like this which works on integration is not going to solve every problem for everyone, but the alternatives are not, don't take in a single refugee ever again or introduce schemes like this. So it is sensible to try to devise workable schemes for supporting refugees to become part of their new communities. I hope this one will succeed.

Hosting anyone you do not know well in your house is something of a leap of faith. I would feel more comfortable doing this with a woman. Statistically as well I am aware that the vast majority of violent crime is committed by men. I realise this is not all men, but the percentages would be enough to make me more reluctant to take a man than a woman.

Shabana Mahmood made history in July 2024 when she was sworn in as the UK’s first female Muslim Lord Chancellor at the Royal Courts of Justice, taking her oath on the Holy Quran.

I'm not planning to hit anyone tbh.

Are you happy to give a room to a male refugee?

There are people who offer refuge to street homeless people, many of whom are British. For myself I'm aware that it is rare for street homeless people not to have substance misuse and related problems. Of course a refugee could turn out to have these problems too. In either case I wouldn't be willing to share my home with them, as I would feel unsafe.

We are all comfortable with different levels of risk. In any scheme like this, people will have to have final say over who they are willing to host (obviously). Men, we know, are always more of a risk to both men and women than women. So I am sure lots of people would stipulate sharing with a woman, as is their right.

God how utterly nauseating. I’m sick to death of being asked to give to charity every time I go into a shop, I’m sick to death of being taxed to pay for god knows who to live here, while our NHS fails. No I won’t sponsor yet another person from somewhere that can’t manage its own people. We are a sinking ship.

There are male refugees I know whom I'd be willing to offer temporary accommodation to, but they are already couch-surfing in more central locations, better for work.

I would generally be more cautious about men. For example, after a work night out, I would offer a female colleague the couch overnight if helpful, but not a male. I'm sure many women are similar. My bar for allowing men in my personal space is much higher than for women.

So it is unlikely I would offer a place to a man through this scheme, but I very much doubt this scheme is going to force single women to take men into their homes! So that is no reason the scheme should fail.

I havent read the whole thread, but I read lots of information over the years about people taking in Ukrainians and it went really badly, they couldnt get them out of their houses etc

However I will say tha there are swathes and swathes of elderly people in this country suffering from chronic loneliness, they go weeks without interacting with anyone

Where is the government scheme to support this formally? Yes there are voluntering roles for this but its very 'mend and make do'

Once I can cut my work ours or retire myself I want to do volunteering but if there was more of a scheme that would be set up by government I think people would be more alert to that. Yet here is a scheme to support people that dont even live here yet.

I'm often struck by the lack of a big volunteer scheme to help the elderly. In Ireland there is ALONE which is quite well known, and also the Vincent de Paul is very active. I have shopped at Help the Elderly charity shops here, but they don't seem to have that high a profile. I think this is probably an area where the drop in churchgoing has left a lot of gaps too.

Women probably won’t say yes to men in their homes. Would men take them? I suppose Gary Linekar has been vocal so could sign up, and others who share his eagerness.

I’m not sure why any victim has to be a proxy vetting system for men arriving though. Whether they’re in a home or not.

What do you think happens when someone arrives undocumented?

They seek asylum, they're given refugee status. Their documentation is that which is given to them via the HO and immigration and the UK government

Voila - documented

You still dont know anything about them other than what they've said in their substantive interview and which has then been assessed as a genuine claim and agreed by the HO as a reason to issue LTR.

Which is fine, but dont kid yourself there is any difference in what you know. Asylum seekers who gain refugee status, dont always come with clear documentation and records from their home countries setting out how they lived, any crimes etc, they dont exist like that. They dont come with references, health and school records and address histories. Half the time we get told they dont have any family, then an uncle pops up somewhere in the UK, then a cousin and so on. Theres a lack of clarity about who is still alive in their family for example.