The UK government presented a bill this Tuesday to stop migrants and smugglers from crossing the English Channel in small boats and deny asylum to those who arrive illegally. “If they enter the UK illegally, they will be arrested and quickly removed” of the country, Interior Minister Suella Braverman warned in a statement to parliament.
The law allows the detention of illegal immigrants for the first 28 days, without coercion or legal action, until they can be removed. According to Braverman, this “will drastically reduce the number of lawsuits and appeals that can suspend the removal”.
The proposed “illegal migration” law gives priority to the “removal obligation” over the right to asylum, with exceptions for minors under the age of 18 and those with serious medical conditions. Those who are deported will not be allowed to return to the UK or apply for UK citizenship in the future.
More than 45,000 people crossed the English Channel in small boats and entered the UK last year, up from around 300 in 2018. Most have applied for asylum, but a waiting list of more than 160,000 cases means many have to wait months at processing centers or overcrowded are hotels, without the right to work.
The UK government is under pressure to curb illegal immigration, which polls in Conservative constituency areas have identified as one of the top concerns. Demonstrators, some aligned with far-right groups, have demonstrated near some of the places where asylum seekers are housed. A protest near Liverpool in February sparked violent clashes, with protesters setting fire to a police van.
The proposed law presented in parliament this Tuesday would take several months to be passed and put into effect. The legislation is a test of the UK’s commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and the UN Refugee Convention, which grant rights to asylum seekers arriving in the country.
The UK already has an agreement with Rwanda to deport asylum seekers, but so far this has not been put into practice due to ongoing legal proceedings. According to Suella Braverman, the system of processing these migrants costs the state about £3,000 million a year (3,400 million euros). Accommodation alone entails a daily expenditure of £6 million (6.8 million euros), he said.
The minister admitted that developed countries will come under increasing pressure from illegal immigrants, so the UK must act now before the situation worsens as “the problem is already unsustainable”. “If a government fails to respond to waves of illegal immigrants arriving at our borders, it would be a betrayal of the will of the people we are elected to.”emphasized Braverman, herself the daughter of immigrants.
In an op-ed for the tabloid The Sun, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak claimed for the UK “proud history of welcoming the most deprived”, but argued that the new measures are intended to be fair to Britons and asylum seekers.
The government says many of those crossing are economic migrants rather than refugees, pointing to last year’s surge in arrivals from Albania, a European country the UK considers safe. Another argument is that immigrants coming from France do not flee directly from a country at war or where their lives are in danger, and they can seek asylum in that or another European country.
The legislation, Sunak stressed, intends to do just that “sending a clear signal that if they come to this country illegally, they will be swiftly removed”. This measure will also “help break the business model of human traffickers”, asking thousands of euros to facilitate the dangerous crossing on one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Last November, a dinghy carrying 34 migrants sank in the English Channel, killing 31 people, including a pregnant woman.
The executive’s plan has been criticized by opposition parties and refugee-support associations, claiming it is immoral, impractical and costly. The government was also accused of not having other safe and legal ways to welcome refugees, except for specific areas and countries, namely Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Ukraine.
Conservative MP Yvette Cooper said the Conservative executive “amplified the rhetoric about refugees”. “This bill is not a solution. It is a farce that threatens to make the chaos even worse”warned.
Source: DN
