The Home Secretary has pledged to save the asylum system “for generations to come” as she announced the opening of new safe routes for refugees from the autumn.
But plans announced by Shabana Mahmood on Friday night will also see changes to human rights laws that will make it easier to deport people in the country illegally.
Ms Mahmood said: “I will open new legal routes for genuine refugees, while closing loopholes that have been too often abused.
“My goal is simple: to ensure we have an asylum system not just today, but for generations to come.”
The new safe routes will allow communities and some “trusted” universities to sponsor refugees to come to the UK.
It has been inspired by a Canadian scheme that has settled 400,000 people in the country since 1979.
A separate route allowing employers to sponsor refugees is also expected to open next year.
The Home Office did not say how many refugees it expected to use the new routes, but it did say the system would “operate at a much higher capacity” than the current UK Resettlement Scheme that provides a route for only a small number of people each year.
In addition to the new routes, Ms Mahmood has said a new Immigration and Asylum Bill will seek to prevent “abuse” of human rights laws, including the right to a family life and modern slavery protections.
The new law will tighten the definition of “family” for the purposes of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), restricting it to immediate family members only.
Critics of the asylum system have focused on Article 8 of the ECHR, saying it has been used to frustrate the deportation of people with no right to be in the UK.
The Home Office said the new definition would prevent situations such as one that prevented the deportation of a convicted domestic abuser from Poland because he acted as a “father figure” to his nephew.
The new legislation will also remove modern slavery protections from foreign offenders who have been jailed and reject claims made when deportation action has already commenced if there was an opportunity to make a claim earlier.
Ms Mahmood said: “Britain has always offered sanctuary to those fleeing war and persecution.
“But this system only survives if the public trusts that it is fair, controlled, and not open to abuse.”
But Friday’s announcement comes as Ms Mahmood faces questions about whether she will remain in post once Sir Keir Starmer leaves Downing Street.
Her planned changes to rules governing indefinite leave to remain (ILR) have drawn criticism from some Labour MPs, with Sir Keir’s likely successor Andy Burnham facing calls to scrap them.
During his by-election campaign in Makerfield, Mr Burnham suggested that he wanted a “consultation” on the proposals, leaving open the possibility that they could be revised.
Ms Mahmood also spent Friday embroiled in a row with one of her junior ministers, Mike Tapp, after he suggested exempting care workers from her ILR reforms.
Sir Keir resisted her calls to sack Mr Tapp, with Downing Street issuing a rebuke to both ministers.
