Afghans who are eligible for resettlement will be flown to the UK imminently from Pakistan and told to sign a Home Office legal agreement or face homelessness.
The refugees, who have been trapped in limbo in Islamabad, have been told they will have seven days to seek legal advice before they must enter into an “excluded licence agreement” to qualify for temporary accommodation.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer told MPs that 250 Afghans are being flown to the UK on Wednesday, with more to follow.
The families will initially be housed in permanent homes or temporary accommodation for a week on arrival to the UK. After the week is up, those in temporary housing will need to sign the agreement or have nowhere to live.
If they do sign the agreement, it will last until 31 March 2024. However, the Home Office have warned families their housing “could be terminated well before” that date.
They will only receive one offer of a permanent home and will not be able be provided with anything else if they refuse it.
In a confusing letter sent to the Afghan refugees, the Home Office said: “You will be given seven calendar/ five working days to seek your own legal advice and enter into the excluded licence. If you do not enter into the excluded licence after seven calendar/ five working days, you will no longer be eligible to remain in temporary accommodation provided by the UK government.”
Sarah Fenby-Dixon, an Afghan consultant for the NGO Global Witness, said it was “completely unreasonable” to expect people to find legal advice within seven days and criticised the confusing language used in the letter.
She added: “This letter has been sent to Afghans who, by definition, are amongst the most vulnerable people and who have already had to jump through so many hoops put in front of them. The technical language makes the letter impenetrable for the vast majority of native English speakers, let alone those for whom English is a second language.
“It is completely unreasonable to expect traumatised people, who have just arrived in a new country, to identify legal advice within seven days.”
Joe Seaton, who campaigns on behalf of British Council teachers stuck in Pakistan, said: “The Afghan teachers are all highly intelligent and have an excellent command of English, but they, like me, are confused by the letter and shocked by its apparent implications”.
A few hundred Afghans, eligible for UK relocation under the Home Office’s Afghan Citizens and Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), have been living in Pakistan in government-funded hotels. Many have been there for over a year because the UK government stopped chartering flights to bring them to the UK.
In October, the Ministry of Defence started flights for the thousands of Afghans, eligible under the MoD’s scheme, who are in the same position. But there have been no dedicated flights for those on the Home Office scheme so far.
The letter sent to ACRS families says that flights will be organised through the International Organisation for Migration.
Veterans minister Johnny Mercer told MPs that the government would bring 3,500 Afghans, under both the MoD and Home Office schemes, to the UK before the end of the year.
He said that, for those on the Home Office scheme, some will be housed in hotels that have already been contracted by the government.
The government is also considering a community sponsorship scheme for the Afghans, similar to the Homes for Ukraine scheme launched after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he added.
