Channel crossings: London toughens its law against illegal immigration

The British government on Tuesday presented a bill against illegal immigration which plans to prevent migrants arriving by the Channel from seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and deporting them "within weeks", a text at the limits of the international law by London's own admission

Channel crossings: London toughens its law against illegal immigration

The British government on Tuesday presented a bill against illegal immigration which plans to prevent migrants arriving by the Channel from seeking asylum in the United Kingdom and deporting them "within weeks", a text at the limits of the international law by London's own admission.

"If you arrive irregularly, you cannot claim asylum. You cannot benefit from our modern slavery protections. You cannot make spurious human rights claims and you cannot stay" in the UK, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told a press conference.

"It's hard but it's necessary. And it's fair", he said, stressing that the number of migrants crossing the Channel had "more than quadrupled in the last two years", despite the attempts of governments successive conservatives to stop these crossings.

With more than 45,000 arrivals across the Channel last year (mostly Albanians and Afghans but also Iranians, Iraqis and Syrians) and already more than 3,000 this year, the UK asylum system is "overwhelmed", according to London.

"We will detain people who come here illegally, then we will send them back in a few weeks" either to their country or to a country deemed safe like Rwanda, Rishi Sunak said, adding that the government would build new detention centres. detention. He said the law once passed would apply retroactively to March 7.

“Banning people from seeking asylum is illegal, unenforceable and completely inhumane,” Human Rights Watch UK director Yasmine Ahmed tweeted.

This is "another shocking blow from the government" said in a statement Amnesty International, accusing the government of using migrants as "scapegoats" in the midst of a cost of living crisis and a few months from local elections.

For the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the bill amounts to "a ban on asylum".

"The law, if passed, will amount to ending asylum - depriving those who arrive illegally in the UK of the right to seek the protection afforded to a refugee, regardless of the genuineness and urgency of their their request," the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement.

On the front page of the bill presented to Parliament, the government admits that it is unable to ensure that the bill "is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights". "But the government nevertheless wants the House to proceed with the consideration of the bill."

The United Kingdom passed a law last year to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda - whatever their origin - but the project, blocked by European justice, remains at a standstill.

With its very restrictive measures, the Conservative government wants to discourage crossings and break the economic model of smugglers.

The refugee aid associations retort that the successive tightenings already implemented have had no effect, that migrants will only be discouraged if the authorities offer legal means of coming to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, which currently does not happen. is almost not the case.

The presentation of the bill comes as Rishi Sunak is expected in Paris on Friday to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, a few months after the two countries signed a cooperation agreement providing in particular for financial assistance from the British to monitor beaches and l dispatch of British observers to the French side.

The subject has been at the heart of regular tensions with France, accused of not doing enough, but it's time to relax.

"I am very grateful for the cooperation of the French teams on the ground. They work very closely with our teams and, thanks to their work, they help to intercept around half of the attempts to pass. This figure varies, at the moment, it is increasing, which is great news,” Sunak said on Tuesday.

The handling of asylum applications by the British government is a source of tension and misunderstanding among many Britons.

In mid-February, a demonstration by far-right activists outside a hotel for asylum seekers near Liverpool (north-west England) degenerated into violent clashes with the police.

07/03/2023 20:02:30 - London (AFP) - © 2023 AFP