Yvette Cooper will face MPs today as the government desperately tries to keep a lid on fury about Channel boats and asylum hotels.
The Home Secretary is set to make a statement as the Commons returns from a torrid summer dominated by protests over immigration.
Her Cabinet colleague Bridget Phillipson fuelled anger yesterday by defending deploying government lawyers to keep open an asylum hotel in Epping, saying the rights of arrivals trumped those of local residents.
Despite overseeing record numbers of crossings from France this year, Ms Cooper will claim this afternoon that Labour's plans are already working.
She will pledged to press ahead with a shake-up of the asylum appeals process, which currently takes an average of a year.
A new panel will prioritise cases involving foreign criminals and migrants living in hotels, with the aim of halving times to less than 24 weeks.
She is also expected to make it harder for refuges to bring family members to this country unless they meet basic standards like speaking English.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is set to make a statement as the Commons returns from a torrid summer dominated by questions over immigration.
Ms Cooper will argue the changes are designed to bring 'greater fairness and balance' to a system that is struggling to maintain public confidence.
She will blame the last Conservative government for leaving the system in 'chaos and disarray', and warn that the government is facing 'complex challenges (which) require sustainable and workable solutions, not fantasy promises which can't be delivered.'
'Britain has a proud record of giving sanctuary to those fleeing persecution, including in recent years from Ukraine and Hong Kong and we must do more to help students from Gaza,' she will say. 'But the whole system needs to be properly controlled and managed, so the rules are respected and enforced, and so governments not criminal gangs decide who comes to the UK.'
There is speculation that Ms Cooper will also update MPs on her review of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) - with Reform demanding the UK withdraws from the treaty so the asylum system can be toughened.
The Court of Appeal will hand down its full written judgment in the Bell Hotel case later today.
The Government and the hotel's owner last week succeeded in overturning an interim injunction which would have required asylum seekers to be removed from the site.
Epping Forest District Council, which applied for the injunction, is considering taking the case to the Supreme Court.
Protests continued in Epping last night, with police arresting three people.
Around 200 demonstrators gathered outside the council building on Sunday evening, where a woman climbed the steps and unfurled a Union flag.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp dismissed plans to tighten rules on those granted asylum bringing family members to the UK as a 'tiny tweak'.
'I'm afraid the truth is this is a tiny tweak that will make very little difference,' shadow home secretary he told BBC Breakfast.
He said the Government was 'in complete denial' about the scale of the 'borders crisis'.
Despite overseeing record numbers of crossings from France this year, Ms Cooper will claim this afternoon that Labour's plans are already working.
He said: 'To be quite honest, people who cross the channel illegally shouldn't be able to bring any family members over here at all.'
'In fact, if the Government was serious about fixing this issue, what they would be doing is making sure that everybody who arrives illegally is immediately removed.'
Asked why the Conservatives did not restrict people's ability to bring family into the UK when in power, he pointed to the now-scrapped Rwanda plan, which he said would have seen 'every single illegal immigrant crossing the Channel immediately removed to Rwanda'.