In July 2025, the Labour government marks its first full year in power—a year that arrived amid mounting pressure to reshape the UK's immigration system. With immigration topping voter concerns in the wake of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic, the promises were bold: reduce net migration, lessen reliance on overseas labor, crack down on people smugglers, clear the asylum backlog, and speed up deportations of illegal residents. A year in, the political headlines have quieted, but the data tells a more nuanced story.
For those watching from across the Atlantic, the challenges Britain faces in reworking its immigration system are not unfamiliar. The United States, too, wrestles with record-high border crossings, contentious visa politics, and long-standing debates over the role of foreign labor in essential industries. But while the U.S. system remains paralyzed by partisan gridlock, the UK has entered a phase of active recalibration, driven by both public sentiment and institutional strain.
In 2023, Britain hit a staggering net migration figure of over 900,000—numbers that triggered alarm across political lines. But by mid-2024, that figure had been halved to around 431,000. At first glance, this would suggest a government making swift progress. However, a closer examination reveals that much of this decline can be attributed not to Labour’s new policies, but to visa restrictions introduced by the prior Conservative administration. The lag effect of immigration policy is often underappreciated: today's numbers are shaped more by rules written 12 to 18 months ago than by those currently under review in Parliament.
Still, Labour has not been idle. Inheriting a volatile system, it doubled down on some of its predecessor’s controversial measures. For example, the cap on care worker family reunifications—a policy widely criticized for its potential to deter essential healthcare staff—was retained and extended. Moreover, the minimum salary thresholds for skilled worker visas were raised sharply, a move that sent ripples across small businesses and the National Health Service alike. While critics feared these rules would worsen labor shortages, Labour defended them as necessary to reduce what it called “structural overreliance” on foreign workers.
This particular tension—between workforce needs and public demand for tighter immigration controls—has also played out dramatically in the United States. In California, for instance, new restrictions on H-1B visa workers in healthcare and agriculture sparked both outrage and operational disruption. Hospitals warned of understaffed wards. Growers left crops unpicked. Britain now seems to be facing a parallel dilemma: how to fill low-paid but vital roles without opening the doors too wide.
The government’s May 2025 immigration white paper, its first comprehensive policy roadmap, acknowledged this tightrope. It called for a “rebalancing” of the labor market through domestic upskilling, particularly in social care and logistics. Yet training programs take years to bear fruit, and until then, gaps remain. Already, Labour’s restriction-heavy approach has produced dramatic results on paper: a 60% drop in skilled worker visas and an even steeper 81% decline in care worker entries. But whether this will produce the long-term shift the government hopes for—or simply drive industries toward crisis—remains an open question.
Another area where expectations have clashed with reality is the government’s pledge to dismantle the criminal networks smuggling migrants into Britain by sea. Here, Labour adopted an uncompromising tone, promising to “shut down the boats.” The image of small inflatables crossing the English Channel became a potent symbol in recent years, not unlike the scenes at America’s southern border. President Biden, facing similar pressures, deployed National Guard troops and expanded surveillance, but struggled to achieve meaningful reductions in crossings.
Britain’s efforts so far echo that struggle. Despite increased maritime patrols and new border enforcement powers enshrined in the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act, Channel crossings remain high. The complexity of transnational smuggling operations and the enduring pull factors in Europe have made this issue nearly intractable. Intelligence-led operations have dismantled several trafficking rings, but the flow has not been stemmed. This has become a political liability, exposing Labour to the same criticism once lobbed at its predecessors: tough talk, limited results.
Yet not all areas have stalled. In one of the thorniest segments of immigration management—Britain’s beleaguered asylum system—Labour has managed to squeeze some early wins. For years, the system buckled under the weight of a growing backlog, with tens of thousands of claimants housed in hotels at taxpayer expense. The government has since reduced the number of outstanding initial asylum decisions, in part by expanding staffing and triaging cases deemed manifestly unfounded.
Still, here too the gains are fragile. The court system remains jammed with appeals, slowing the final resolution of many cases. Without faster legal adjudication, the cost of housing and services continues to balloon. The situation echoes that of the U.S. asylum courts, where a backlog of over two million cases has tied up claimants and officials alike in a years-long limbo. Just as U.S. immigration judges face resource gaps, Britain’s system has hit bureaucratic limits. Fixing this will require not just political will, but major institutional overhaul.
One of the more politically sensitive promises Labour made was to accelerate the removal of individuals who remain in the country unlawfully. In practice, deportations have increased slightly, aided by bilateral agreements with select nations and improved case tracking. But the process remains slow, hampered by legal appeals, diplomatic sensitivities, and human rights obligations.
In the United States, similar dynamics play out in immigration courts where deportation orders are often delayed for years. The Biden administration, like the Sunak and now Starmer governments, has learned that removal is not simply a matter of signing papers and booking flights. It's a logistical and ethical labyrinth, and public impatience often exceeds the pace of real progress.
What Labour has done, however, is lay the groundwork for further change. The immigration white paper outlines a slew of upcoming measures: raising language requirements for skilled visas, extending residency periods before settlement eligibility, and closing routes deemed vulnerable to abuse. These plans are scheduled to come into force incrementally, with many beginning roll-out in late 2025 and into 2026.
Should these policies survive legal and political scrutiny, they will likely reshape the profile of future migrants to Britain. In theory, fewer low-paid workers, more highly-skilled entrants. A greater emphasis on integration, with stronger language and settlement criteria. Tighter enforcement on overstayers. But whether the policy levers can achieve this vision—without straining public services or the labor market—is uncertain.
The shadow of Brexit continues to loom over this debate. Much of today’s immigration architecture was built in a post-EU context, designed hastily to replace free movement with a points-based system. Labour’s first year in power has, in many ways, been about stress-testing that system. Early data points to a shift—but also to new imbalances. As in the U.S., where immigration reform is famously elusive, Britain’s story is becoming one of constant recalibration.
One year is not enough to judge the full impact of a government’s immigration strategy. But it can show trajectory. Labour appears committed to enforcing a more selective, restrained immigration regime—one that prioritizes domestic workforce development while attempting to preserve humanitarian obligations. Its success will depend not only on future implementation, but also on global migration patterns, judicial resilience, and economic headwinds.
From Washington to Westminster, the immigration debate is no longer about whether to act. It’s about how to act effectively in a world where people are more mobile, crises more frequent, and systems more brittle. For now, Britain’s numbers are heading in the direction Labour promised. But whether this proves sustainable—or politically viable—will depend on the next year, and the one after that.