‘This is inhumane’: British plan for tougher asylum-seeker rules draws criticism
- Home Secretary Priti Patel said the changes are needed to stop illegal people-smuggling rings, and will make the system fairer
- But refugee groups and immigration lawyers say it unfairly discriminates against refugees based on the way they got to the UK
The British government said on Wednesday it will toughen immigration rules to make it harder for people who arrive by unauthorised routes such as small boats and truck stowaways to be given asylum.
Patel said the system would be “fair but firm”. “People are dying at sea, in lorries and in shipping containers,” she said. “To stop the deaths we must stop the trade in people that cause them.”
Refugee groups and immigration lawyers say the plan unfairly discriminates against refugees based on the way they got to Britain.
“The proposals effectively create an unfair two-tiered system, whereby someone’s case and the support they receive is judged on how they entered the country and not on their need for protection,” said Mike Adamson, chief executive of the British Red Cross. “This is inhumane.”
But Patel said the changes are needed to stop illegal people-smuggling rings, and will make the system fairer because it will not give an advantage to those who can pay for their passage. “What is inhumane is allowing people to be smuggled through illegal migration, and that is what we want to stop,” she told the BBC. “We will create safe and legal routes to enable people to come to the United Kingdom in a safe way.”
The British and French governments have worked for years to stop the people-smuggling journeys, without much success.
The new British measures – which have not yet been made into legislation and approved by parliament – also include longer sentences for people smugglers and tougher checks to catch adults claiming to be children. The government also promised to speed up asylum decisions and quickly remove those who fail – promises British governments have made and failed to keep for years.
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The British government says 35,099 people made asylum applications in the UK in the year to March 2020. That is about one-third of the number of applicants in Germany and less than half the total for Spain and France.