A pilot "refugee visa" scheme for Afghans travelling to the UK to seek asylum will help to slash small boat crossings across the Channel, a think tank has suggested.
The humanitarian visa could be initially piloted by the Home Office for up to 10,000 Afghans with potential for it to be scaled up, a Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) report released on Tuesday said.
The visa would allow Afghans to apply for temporary entry into the UK from embassies in neighbouring countries to Afghanistan, such as Islamabad, Tehran, and Ankara.
Once approved, applicants could travel to the UK and apply from asylum there without having to risk their lives via dangerous crossings on the Channel.
The pilot scheme should target Afghan asylum seekers because they are one of the largest nationality groups currently arriving in small boats and have a very high rate of being granted asylum, the report called Charting new waters: A progressive policy response to the channel crossings said.
The "vast majority" who receive a refugee visa are likely to be granted asylum in the UK, it added.
The UK also has special obligations to support people from Afghanistan as a result of the Afghan war and the hasty withdrawal in 2021.
Ninety-eight percent of Afghans who sought asylum in the UK were granted it in the year ending in June 2023, the IPPR said.
Afghans were the most common nationality to arrive by Channel crossings in the first half of 2023. There were at least 1,474 Afghan nationals who arrived in small boats from January to June, Home Office figures showed.
Separately, Afghans were the second most common nationality applying for asylum in the year to June 2023, with 9,964 applications, almost double the number in the previous 12 months.
“The pilot would be for Afghans given that they are the one largest groups crossing the Channel and have a very high asylum grant rate,” the report said.
“People make the journey because they need to be physically present in the UK to claim asylum and because traditional routes – such as by ferry or plane – are largely unavailable due to hefty carrier sanctions for operators found transporting those without the right documentation.
“If alternative ways of reaching the UK are easily available, then people are likely to favour these routes over more dangerous options.
“For instance, the Ukraine routes opened since the Russian invasion mean that virtually zero Ukrainians have been detected crossing the Channel in small boats in the past year.”
The scheme should complement existing refugee settlement programmes, the report said.
Both the Government's Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS) and Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy (ARAP) have faced criticism from campaigners and charities which branded them too slow and suggested people desperately fleeing the Taliban have felt forced to make dangerous Channel crossings instead.
Some 340 people have resettled under the ACRS and 2,336 under ARAP. Under the proposed pilot refugee visa scheme, an initial total number of around 5,000 to 10,000 visas would be available, with the potential for this to be scaled up if the pilot scheme is successful.
The total should be split into weekly or monthly quotas in order to manage demand for the visa over time, the report suggested.
The Biden administration introduced a similar scheme which has so far shown to lower the number of border crossings, the IPPR said.
The US programme of humanitarian parole allowed for up to 30,000 people each month from countries including Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to enter the US. In the six months since it was introduced, there was an overall 89 per cent fall in "unlawful encounters" of people from these countries at the southwest border.
“The US experience therefore suggests that introducing new legal pathways can play a significant role in diverting people away from irregular routes, provided these pathways are well designed and accessible,” the report suggested.
The think tank also recommended the Home Office expand the UK Resettlement Scheme to around 10,000 people each year and negotiate a new small boats agreement with France as well as an agreement with the EU “to develop a more sustainable model” for managing irregular crossings.
The Government’s controversial Rwanda deportation policy will "almost certainly be destined for failure" and the Illegal Migration Act will "backfire", the report added.
In August the IPPR estimated that asylum seeker accommodation costs will eventually exceed £5 billion annually even under the Rwanda deportation plan.
