FORCING people seeking refuge into £10,000 of debt is an “abandonment of principles that should never be negotiable,” campaigners warned today as the government published new plans for its immigration system.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced the proposal, which would order asylum-seekers to pay the sum to cover living costs while they await a decision on their status.

If they do not pay, Ms Mahmood’s plans would automatically deny refugees settled status in Britain.

Critics immediately slammed the means-tested scheme, saying it would punish people fleeing war, torture and famine.

And it would only raise a “relatively small” amount for the Home Office’s goals of cutting the amount it spends each year on asylum accommodation and support by £4 billion.

The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) condemned the move as “yet another shameless attempt by Labour to inflate the coffers of private companies like Serco, Mears and Clearsprings with multibillion-pound contracts to run asylum accommodation unfit for human habitation.”

JCWI spokesperson Seema Syeda told the Star: “Forcing people seeking safety into debt to pay for it is new depths of cruelty.

“There’s a simple solution: give asylum-seekers the right to rent and the right to work, so they can live in our communities in accommodation they choose — as all human beings deserve to be treated.

“We’re waiting with bated breath for Andy Burnham to announce his opposition to these proposals, and usher in the ‘change’ that Labour sorely needs.”

Amnesty International UK branded the Bill, as well as other recent Home Office proposals, another step in the “increasingly punitive” changes made to the asylum and immigration system by successive governments.

Its refugee and migrant rights director Steve Valdez-Symonds said: “Access to justice and the rule of law are not inconveniences to be worked around.

“Protections against torture, family separation and arbitrary state power are values this country has upheld for generations.

“Yet this government appears willing to cast them aside in pursuit of political headlines.

“Abandoning principles that should never be negotiable, including by seeking to weaken the protections guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, is weakness, not leadership.”

Oxford’s Migration Observatory director Dr Madeleine Sumption warned the Bill’s impact on “public finances is likely to be relatively small, because it is a means-tested payment for a very low-income population.”