Recently, the Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the UK Resettlement Scheme (UKRS) would reopen. Since then, people have been approaching us with questions about what this might mean for them and their family. This is what we know.

• The UKRS is a route for people to come to the UK as refugees meaning they don’t have to claim asylum when they are here.

• People cannot directly apply to the UKRS. It functions through overseas referral partners, the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP). They refer people to the UK government for the UKRS.

• GMIAU is not a referral partner and we cannot help people be referred to the UKRS. This is for IRAP and UNHCR and their partner organisations.

• We don't know how many people the UKRS will take overall but we know it is likely to be small – the Home Office said in the “low hundreds”.

• We don’t know which nationalities will be eligible for the UKRS but around a quarter of new referrals will be for Palestinian refugees living in Jordan or Lebanon, and women and girls from Afghanistan.

• People in the UK already are not eligible for the UKRS.

More information

UNHCR and IRAP both have information on their websites about the scheme.

For people worried about family members overseas:
The UNHCR advises: If your family outside the UK are asylum-seekers, refugees or stateless persons and they have concerns for their safety or wellbeing, they should contact their nearest UNHCR office. Depending on their issues, they may be referred to UNHCR programmes, government services or other support organisations in their country of asylum. Contact details for UNHCR offices outside the UK can be found here.

There are other ways that people might be able to join their relatives in the UK. Please see our legal resource on Refugee Family Reunion for more.