Shabana Mahmood's “reckless” plans to create safe and legal routes for asylum seekers will heap pressure on Britain's struggling communities, Robert Jenrick declared.
The Home Secretary has vowed to create more safe and legal routes, with a cap on the numbers of students and “skilled” refugees allowed to come to the UK.
But Mr Jenrick, the former immigration minister, warned there is not enough social housing for Britain to take in thousands of people when “there are already thousands of illegal migrants in asylum hotels”.
Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “We need bold action, but Shabana Mahmood will only tweak and tinker around the edges, while leaving our broken model of asylum in place.
“And even worse, the Home Secretary's announcement yesterday of more “safe and legal” routes will only worsen the pressures on communities.
“We simply do not have the capacity. Where is the spare social housing? Where are the magical pots of council funding? There are already thousands of illegal migrants in asylum hotels. 106,000 are on direct taxpayer support.
“Labour are living in a parallel universe. Speaking at the House of Commons liaison committee in July, Keir Starmer insisted that there was “lots of housing available” to accommodate asylum seekers.
“While local authorities struggle to meet the needs of struggling Brits, Starmer believes that they should be made to house asylum seekers instead. He's sending the British people to the back of the queue.”
Under Labour's plans, asylum seekers will be granted temporary protection in the UK, with reviews every 30 months to determine whether their home country is safe for them to be returned home.
And the government will target families whose asylum claims have been refused for deportation, creating another potential flashpoint with Labor MPs.
The Home Office is also looking at forcibly deporting Syrians again following the brutal civil war which ravaged the Middle Eastern country.
Human rights laws will be overhauled to limit how failed asylum seekers and foreign criminals can claim a right to a family life.
A family will be defined as “parents and their children”, under new Home Office plans.
But Ms Mahmood has also vowed to create more safe and legal routes to the UK.
The Home Secretary will set an annual cap on arrivals through safe and legal routes, “based on community capacity”.
There will be capped routes for refugees, displaced students and skilled refugees, it is understood.
This will be “flexible” to respond to global crises, officials said.
But Mr. Jenrick pointed to the widening of an emergency scheme for Palestinian students as a potential blueprint that Labor could follow.
Gazans coming to study in the UK on scholarships will be able to bring their partners and children with them.
A cohort of students from the Palestinian enclave took up fully funded places at UK universities in September, under special arrangements agreed by the Home Office to bring them safely here.
But the Home Office said family members could join them.
Mr Jenrick added: “Just like with the Gazan route, these extra routes will open the door to more special pleading, more exceptions – and ultimately, more asylum seekers in communities that do not want them and cannot afford to host them.
“The truth is that the Labor Party just doesn't have what it takes to fix this issue for good. They don't recognize how serious the problem is. At every turn, they've been dangerously deluded about the scale of the crisis at our border.
“Without total reform of our asylum system, we will always end up with more people coming to this country than we can possibly handle.”
Housing and weekly allowances will no longer be guaranteed for asylum seekers and those who can work or have valuable assets will have to contribute to their costs in the UK.
Reform UK's Nigel Farage on Tuesday insisted the plans will not work.
He said: “There's a couple very, very basic things you have to do. Number one, you pass a law that nobody who comes via this route will ever be given refugee status. Number two, you are not free to walk the streets. You will be detained, as simple as that. And number three, you will be deported.
“And you know, it's a really funny thing, I'm told 'well, of course, we can't send people back to Afghanistan.'
“Well, you know what?
“The Germans are sending planes to Afghanistan every single week. So all of this is about political will.
“All of this is not being afraid in the short term of being condemned by some international courts and communities.”
The plans announced by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood have faced public condemnation from some Labor figures, including a peer who fled to Britain as a child refugee.
Lord Alf Dubs said it was a “shabby thing” that Ms Mahmood was using “children as a weapon”.
“I find it upsetting that we've got to adopt such a hard line – what we need is a bit of compassion in our politics and I think that some of the measures were going in the wrong direction, they won't help.
“The hard line approach will not, in fact, deter people from coming here – at least on the basis of people I spoke to in Calais, for example.”
The refugee campaigner also said that “to use children as a weapon, as the Home Secretary is doing, I think is a shabby thing” as he pointed to the fate of children born in the UK and integrated into communities whose parents are slated for removal.