{"id":454,"date":"2026-03-23T10:24:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T10:24:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gold-tapir-911468.hostingersite.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/23\/shabana-mahmood-is-wrong-refugee-status-was-never-permanent-from-day-one\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T13:55:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T13:55:09","slug":"shabana-mahmood-is-wrong-refugee-status-was-never-permanent-from-day-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/23\/shabana-mahmood-is-wrong-refugee-status-was-never-permanent-from-day-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Shabana Mahmood is wrong: refugee status was never \u2018permanent from day\u00a0one\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK\u2019s asylum system is being overhauled. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has laid out a series of reforms that will affect refugees seeking safety in Britain. Mahmood argues that these changes \u2013 which include removing financial and housing support<\/a> for asylum seekers who break the law, and offering incentive payments for asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected to return home \u2013 will remove \u201cincentives\u201d drawing people to Britain. She says they are necessary as part of a \u201cfirm but fair approach\u201d<\/a> to asylum.<\/p>\n

One of the headline announcements is to make refugee status<\/a> temporary, subject to review every 30 months<\/a>. \u201cThose whose country has now become safe, and therefore no longer require protection, will be expected to return home,\u201d according to the home secretary.<\/p>\n

Under the current rules, asylum seekers who have been granted refugee status are permitted to stay for five years, after which they can apply for indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Mahmood claims that \u201cthis means refugee status is, in effect, permanent from day one\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But this is not true. Refugee status was always intended to be temporary. Most refugees have never wanted to be refugees forever, and states have never been expected to host them indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Since the creation of the UN refugee convention, states have had the right to end refugee status<\/a>. The convention itself, as the home secretary even noted<\/a>, says that its protections no longer apply if \u201cthe circumstances in [connection] with which [someone] has been recognised as a refugee have ceased to exist\u201d.<\/p>\n

If someone is no longer in need of international protection, they must either return to their country of origin or find another legal way to stay where they are. The UN refugee agency has always been clear though that the onus of proving this falls on states. Refugees should neither be required to continuously justify their right to international protection nor \u201cbe subject to constant review in the light of temporary changes\u201d<\/a> in the country that they came from. This puts the UK government\u2019s position at odds with a key principle designed to protect refugees, by requiring them to apply for further permission to stay<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Technically, the UK government already had the right to remove refugee status and, if individuals had no other legal claim to stay in the UK, send people back to countries it deemed \u201csafe\u201d. For several reasons, however, this has been difficult to implement in practice.<\/p>\n

To end a person\u2019s refugee status, states must prove that a refugee is no longer at risk of persecution, and that if they must return to their country of origin, they will not face a threat to their life and fundamental liberties. States must hence demonstrate that there has been a \u201cfundamental, stable and durable\u201d<\/a> change in the country of origin. This should be related to the specific reason for the refugee\u2019s asylum claim.<\/p>\n

Looking at major recent refugee-producing countries, such as Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan, conflict and violence still rage. It seems implausible that any government would be able to prove that significant numbers of citizens from these countries no longer have valid claims to protection.<\/p>\n

Denmark \u2013 the country whose asylum system has inspired Mahmood \u2013 has been attempting to reject Syrians\u2019 applications to renew their refugee status, on the grounds that parts of Syria are safe for them to return to. These efforts have been criticised<\/a> by international groups including the UN refugee agency<\/a>, and are so far only applicable to a small number of people.<\/p>\n

Determining safety<\/h2>\n

Refugees can become pawns in domestic and international politics<\/a>, regardless of their ongoing need for protection.<\/p>\n

Who, for example, gets to decide what is an acceptable standard of human rights? Or whether a change is actually \u201cfundamental, stable and durable\u201d? Countries of asylum have pushed to end<\/a> refugees\u2019 statuses to reduce their responsibilities to host them. This appears to be Mahmood\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

Countries of origin can also manipulate this process. They have pushed for refugees to be returned to them, in order to silence legitimate political opposition in exile, and in the hope of restoring their images as peaceful countries. This happened during the protracted application of the cessation clause to Rwandan refugees<\/a>, leaving many in a vulnerable position.<\/p>\n

Practically too, in stating that the status of refugees will be reviewed every 30 months, Mahmood is introducing another costly and time-intensive bureaucratic process when the asylum system is already chronically backlogged. The government has already trialled using artificial intelligence in asylum decision making<\/a>, so it\u2019s possible that this is on the horizon here. But this comes with its own risks to due process, fairness and privacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I would argue that the government is dressing up a legal option that they have always had as a \u201cnew policy\u201d, while downplaying the safeguards that have prevented them from turning this option into reality.<\/p>\n

It is unlikely that this reform will make the asylum process either more efficient or humane, or that it was ever intended to do so. Mahmood insists that it will make the system \u201cfair \u2026 to those seeking a new and better future in this country\u201d<\/a> \u2013 but requiring refugees to relive and defend their trauma every two and a half years will only heighten the suspicious, hostile and punitive nature of the asylum system.\"The<\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

Georgia Cole<\/a><\/h3>\n

Senior Lecturer, University of Edinburgh<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UK\u2019s asylum system is being overhauled. The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has laid out a series of reforms that will affect refugees seeking safety in Britain. Mahmood argues that these changes \u2013 which include removing financial and housing support for asylum seekers who break the law, and offering incentive payments for asylum seekers whose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":333,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-article","8":"category-latest-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-secularist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}