IT has been an unbelievably tough week for refugees across the UK.
For immigration and human rights lawyers, it has been frantic. Usman Aslam, a senior associate at Mukhtar & Co in Glasgow – has received calls pretty much 24/7.
“We've got people in tears over the phones. Saying, please do something. And that's just heartbreaking,” he told The Sunday National.
It came after then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced on Monday that the UK Government will suspend all new applications under the existing dedicated refugee family reunion route – which allows people to bring their partners and children to the country once they are granted refugee status.
The move sparked wide condemnation and a frenzied rush in law firms across the country to get applications in for clients by 3pm on Thursday – a last minute deadline the Home Office only made clear on Wednesday.
“To cut dead the only lifeline open to refugees desperately trying to submit family reunion applications is unbelievably cruel,” the CEO of Positive Action in Housing, Robina Qureshi, said.
The Glasgow-based charity was attempting to submit last-minute family reunion applications before that deadline for up to 75 Palestinian families to reunite in the UK and escape Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Aslam’s firm was doing the same.
“Our office phones and emails, like every firm has been non-stop. Humans in sheer panic as within a matter of a few days they are told the process would be suspended,” he said.
“People want to be able to live with their family. That's a given. People here get up in their throats because their son or daughter might not make it for Christmas.
“We need to see it through the eyes of the refugees who also deserve that. Living with your wife and your children is so, so fundamental.”
Aslam (below) added: “It’s pretty ridiculous. I mean, usually transitional arrangements are done for much longer periods. But, I think that it's indicative of pandering to the right-wing.
“It’s a bad day when you think that Rishi Sunak and Co. – we might have been better off with.”
The shock move from the Labour Government comes after the so-called summer of discontent, which saw far-right protests outside asylum seeker hotels across the UK and increased pressure from – according to polls – the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
Now, refugees will be covered by "the same family migration rules and conditions as everyone else" until a new framework is introduced, Cooper said in her statement.
It comes ahead of more comprehensive reforms to family reunion, which will be outlined in an asylum statement later this year and implemented by spring.
Cooper claimed the planned changes will give “greater fairness and balance”.
Andy Sirel, the legal director and a partner at JustRight Scotland – a charity set up by human rights lawyers – disagrees.
“The new family reunion rules are completely unachievable. The rules that are replacing require you to earn £29,000 a year. They require you to pay somewhere between £3000 and 5000 pounds per application. They're requiring you to demonstrate that you can support and accommodate the family with no recourse to public funds, and they're requiring English language requirements.
“Is this wife who's displaced from Gaza, or this husband who's displaced from Gaza going to be able to learn English and set a test as part of this?
“You have people locked in an asylum system for 1 year, 2 years, with no ability to work, kept in destitution-level asylum support, no ability to go to university to enhance their skills. And then you suddenly expect them to be earning £29,000 a year and be able to support a full family themselves straight away. It has effectively closed the route down.”
He said that many will be impacted by the changes, lumping more stress onto refugees simply desperate to reunite with their loved ones.
One of Sirel’s clients, for example – a Palestinian refugee from Gaza – is trying to reunite with his wife and two young daughters.
He has not seen them in 2 years amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Being separated from my wife, daughters, and mother is unbearable. Every day I wake up with the weight of not knowing if they are safe. I feel helpless as a husband, as a father, and as a son,” he told The Sunday National.
When he first heard about the suspension of the family reunion route, he was devastated.
“I had believed that family reunion was one of the few legal and safe routes we could rely on. To take that away at a time when families are desperate to be together is profoundly unfair. It has crushed my hope that my family could finally be safe and with me.”
The route for refugees to reunite with family members in the UK – even before Cooper’s announcement this week – was already fraught with delays and difficulties – particularly for those coming from the likes of Syria, Afghanistan and Gaza.
As of June 2025, about 223,000 people have arrived in the UK under the Ukrainian schemes since Russia’s invasion, including the Homes for Ukraine (Sponsorship) Scheme and the Ukraine Family Scheme.
But for Palestinians, the welcome amid Israel’s genocide from Keir Starmer’s Government has been nowhere near as warm – many instead suffering through endless legal and bureaucratic hurdles just to be with their loved ones.
This has been particularly the case for so-called “extended” family. While spouses and children could apply through the previous family reunion route, parents and siblings couldn’t.
The Gaza Families Reunited campaign, alongside 350 families in the UK, has been tirelessly advocating for an immediate family reunification scheme.
Ghassan Ghaben, one of the campaign’s spokespeople, is originally from Gaza and is now a UK citizen living in Manchester.
He has fought for nearly two years now to reunite with his mother, father and three siblings in the UK.
They endured the first six months of Israel’s genocide in Gaza before successfully crossing into Egypt, where they have no family or legal status.
“They have no rights at all in Egypt. So, they can't study, they don't have access to healthcare. They don't have the right to work. They have nothing, literally. And, you know, they can't go obviously back to Gaza because of the genocide.”
There was a sliver of hope in February when a family was able to settle in the UK via the Ukraine Family Scheme.
The Palestinian family, a mother, father and four children aged seven to 18, had seen their home destroyed by air strikes and were living in a Gaza refugee camp.
The family used the Ukraine scheme in January 2024 on the basis that it best fitted their circumstances and that their situation was so “compelling and compassionate” that their application should be granted outside its rules.
But then the Prime Minister pledged to close the route which allowed a Palestinian family to settle in the UK via the Ukraine Family Scheme in February.
The Palestinian family, a mother, father and four children aged seven to 18, had seen their home destroyed by air strikes and were living in a Gaza refugee camp.
The family used the Ukraine scheme in January 2024 on the basis that it best fitted their circumstances and that their situation was so “compelling and compassionate” that their application should be granted outside its rules.
The application was refused in May last year, after the Home Office concluded the requirements of the scheme were not met. The family's initial appeal was dismissed but was then upheld in January this year by upper tribunal judges on the grounds of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects the right to a family life.
In response, Starmer pledged to close this route and the Labour Government is now set to curb judges’ powers to block deportations.
This refusal to extend the same welcome to non-Ukrainian and Hong Kong refugees and their loved ones comes despite pressure from MPs from across the political spectrum.
Dozens of Westminster parliamentarians wrote to the Prime Minister over the issue in June, including two SNP MPs and 35 Labour MPs and Lords members.
They argued it should be set up to "reunite [Palestinians] with their loved ones in the UK until it is safe to return".
The letter added: "Just as the UK opened its doors to those fleeing persecution in Ukraine and Hong Kong, we believe that the same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families.”
While Ghaben (below) isn’t impacted directly by the decision to suspend the family reunion route this week as it only applies to so-called “immediate” family members – he knows many who are.
Just a few days before Cooper’s announcement, he spoke with a Palestinian man in Manchester who recently got his refugee status and was looking for a lawyer so he could attempt to reunite with his wife and two children who are currently in Gaza City, where Israel has launched a ground offensive amid an ongoing famine.
He managed to get his application off in time after a frenzied rush. But the man’s brother, who is also in the UK but is yet to receive his refugee status, didn’t manage despite also asking for help.
“I had no words to tell him, what to tell him,” Ghaben said.
“These people, the only thing they care about is bringing their family out of Gaza so they are safe and now this government is taking this away from them.”
He said that this move from Cooper and the UK Government was “cowardly” and a weak pander to the far-right – also highlighting past comments from the former Home Secretary in 2021 in which she said closing legal routes would “end up with more people being driven into the arms of criminal gangs”.
For some, even receiving a positive decision from the Home Office doesn’t mean an immediate family reunion.
The Sunday National spoke with 22-year-old Ali Khalifa, a refugee from Syria living in Glasgow, who has been attempting for years to reunite with his wife Rema (above).
In December last year, he was delighted to hear that Rema was granted entry clearance after a lengthy legal battle – receiving the standard email to go and submit her passport.
She has since attended the visa centre three times and at great expense (the closest working visa centre she can attend is in neighbouring Lebanon) to be told time and time again that there was no visa to be issued despite the Home Office claiming she can in several emails, according to his lawyers.
Khalifa said he is paralysed with fear and depression over the wait.
“I cannot do anything because of my full concern about my wife and her safety in Syria. While there is a new government in Syria, It's still not really safe,” he said.
“You can hear in the news, Israel is bombing some places in Syria. I'm really worried about my wife. She keeps asking me when I am going to bring her out from the hell there. I cannot live like this. We should be reunited again and live our life together.”
His lawyer, Mukhtar & Co’s Aslam, said: “We had no option but to threaten court action, but were assured that a caseworker “now has the case”. That was in May 2025. This very young girl has had to make dangerous journeys across Syria into Lebanon and we are all aware of the constant bombing of both those countries.
“The recent news on family reunion which I have already spoken to the press about, may be an indication as to the attitude towards refugees who simply want to be reunited with their loved ones. It is baffling why the Secretary of State is taking such an inhumane approach to a tiny number of applications.”
He added: “It is a sad moment in the UK when families of other human beings appear to be of less value than our own. Suddenly human beings do not have equal value.”
When asked for comment, the Home Office directed The Sunday National to the Home Secretary’s statement from Monday, which outlined why they decided to suspend the scheme.
