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

Never in a million years

No, we couldn't send people back to Spain and such next week! These things require negotiation. We lost the bilateral agreements facilitating them.with Brexit. Work is underway to restore them piecemeal. You can read about it here.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9724/

But any such agreement will require the UK to take its own quota of refugees, in many cases those with links to the UK. If we are taking refugees, a scheme like this will help with integration, which is an essential next step.

We had a very positive experience hosting a Ukrainian girl. She stayed with us for a year. Lots of people in our village, surrounding villages and small local town hosted them. Some had a woman plus her children. However, Ukrainian culture is reasonably similar to ours, and she knew from the beginning what our hopes and expectations were and was very respectful. She obviously liked us, or she'd have left as soon as she got on her feet. I'd think twice about hosting a man from a misoginystic culture. Or any unknown man, really.

If we can cap the number of refugees, that means the focus is on controlled admissions rather than whoever shows up in a small boat. This scheme seems to be about exactly that.

Why would Spain say yes to the 1000 men arriving this week for example. It will cost their tax payers a huge amount instead of us.

Brexit is an excuse, the DA numbers were incredibly low. International law does not say people have to go back to first country of entry.

Ik you like this scheme, it’s clear. What I want to know is who exactly will take the men who continue arrive and why?

Can you sell to the Spanish electorate that the men arriving here should be redirected to Spain?

What exactly is being discussed that would mean we could do this, pls be specific

There's been a surge in the numbers arriving by small boats in the last few years. Since reaching bilateral agreements with France in the last year, we are seeing a decline, but it's early days.

When you track the number of people reaching Europe by various smuggled routes like this, they don't all rise and fall in sync. Usage rises and falls depending how well they are policed.

So yes, the UK, with European cooperation, should certainly be capable of reversing this increase. Why wouldn't they? It's a recent surge with observable causes which can be tackled. There are early signs that that may be happening.

Even if you don't want to read much more, look at the graph here to see that this is a relatively recent surge. It's not a fact of nature. It can be tackled.

https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/people-crossing-the-english-channel-in-small-boats/

Have you any suggestions for stemming the flow yourself, with or without this scheme?

The Home Office says the number of 'detected' arrivals is more than 200,000 since 2018, but the actual number is far higher.

If the UK dismantles systems that helped to regulate unauthorized arrivals, it needs to build new ones. What concessions and collaborations it offers other nations to regain some of the advantages of that system is not a matter of me inventing specifics. It is a matter for negotiation, over time. But the idea that the UK can simply negotiate its way out of accepting refugees, even if you think it should, is sheer fantasy.

So, Britain will continue to accept refugees. Assuming that fact, I'd certainly consider a scheme to help them integrate while they file their feet, harnessing willing volunteers to do so, a good thing.

This is very much not a scheme about increasing or maintaining numbers arriving in small boats.

The actual number must certainly be higher. I doubt it's in the millions. But we need European cooperation to cut off these people-smuggling groups.

Well this is a bit wooly. Yes we’ll set up this new scheme on top of the men arriving by boat.

The latter won’t change unless you opt out of international law or set up an Australian style system. The Spanish or other at first country have no obligation to take the 1000 who arrived this week and they won’t want the cost either. Why should they

I bet she does.

The way to reduce the number of boats is to tackle the pull factors. The French have already told us this.

But there are a great many vested interests in the asylum industry, including many people whose livelihood depends on maintaining this racket.

Does that include an Afghan ‘woman’ with a penis?

Of course it is. I'm not in the cabinet office. I've no insights into what Spain might wish to negotiate. And I am not trying to invent happy ever after scenarios to win the thread. Return to safe place is a mechanism which, except for limited recent bilateral deals, we have lost. But we had it once and can aim to negotiate it again.

The point is that this scheme is not for men in boats, asylum seekers. It will not increase their numbers. It is for refugees with leave to remain. Refugees start off as asylum seekers. We don't want them arriving in boats. We need to process their claims either here or somewhere else.

A scheme which beings refugees to the UK with their claims processed, and supports them to integrate when they get here, seems to me like by far the least worst option. If it means that our numbers of displaced people are more balanced, with more women and children, that seems a good thing. It will not on its own reduce the flow of small boats. But admitting refugees is a prerequisite to reducing the flow of small boats, unless we believe that Europe will police this matter for Britain while taking the whole burden of managing refugees on itself.

We need politicians to think about the most constructive ways to work with refugees, so I am glad to see them thinking about schemes like this. Not thinking about them doesn't make the flow of dispersed people go away.

Yes, my thoughts exactly.

Absolutely not! I didn't invite a total stranger into my home under the Homes for Ukraine scheme and I won't be doing it now. Utterly bonkers!

Levi Bellfield is a white British male and a lot of women marry and raise families with those.

I'm guessing that you have some vested interest in the asylum industry / racket.

I would also be glad to reduce the pull factors. Illegal working is a huge one. I know young men with intellectual disabilities who have been "employed" at five pounds a day, as asylum seekers. Our systems for checking employers and ID don't seem to work. I wonder what measures might be more effective there?

I suppose there are hotel and rent contracts etc that would represent people with an interest in keeping small boats flowing. But I'm not sure we're talking about a large number of people with a lobbying group there. I suspect it's more a matter of opportunism. Still, off-shore processing would counteract that group.

Compare and contrast.

The Labour government has discussed reviving a “golden visa” scheme for wealthy individuals who come to the UK, four years after it was scrapped amid concerns about dirty money from Russia. Business secretary Peter Kyle has told colleagues that Britain is in a “brutal fight for global talent” and argued that a system can be devised that prevents the pathway becoming a vehicle for oligarchs’ wives and crooks.

Government officials confirmed that the idea was on the table but it has met resistance from both the Home Office and the Treasury, which is sceptical that it would boost economic growth. Under the proposal, individuals who invest £5mn in British businesses could become UK citizens in as little as five years. Campaigners against corruption and money laundering have sounded alarm about the idea.

No such qualms from the HO or Treasury re Mahmood’s latest refugee sponsorship scheme, though.

That's a big assumption - not true in this case, but obviously not something I can prove. I don't really see the point in posting this kind of random accusation. Anyone could make stuff up about anyone.

It's pretty obvious, if you mix with Ukrainians who arrived seeking refuge after 2022, that lots are still on good terms with their host families. It's obvious because they are often attending events etc with their host families

I don't doubt people who say they had negative experiences hosting Ukrainians. Obviously that can happen. Obviously some people had positive experiences too. There's no need to accuse anyone of lying

Not a chance.

In response to the HO’s own post on X announcing the scheme, the second most ‘liked’ post is currently:

You're going to cause civil war in this country.

None of the countries these men are coming from are safe so I wouldn't send them there. And the reason these countries aren't safe is because of the men - so riddle me that.