The UK introduces tougher rules for asylum seekers. The Home Secretary of the UK Priti Patel has described the track she has treated asylum seekers in the UK as “fair but strong”. Priti Patel said that for the first time, asylum seekers would be judged on how they arrived in the UK. She said the ministers would take action against the smugglers because it will no longer be tolerated.
The Home Secretary explained her new plans as follows:
- Grant resettled refugee indefinite leave to remain
- Better integrate refugees who are resettled
- Introduce new maximum life sentences for people smugglers.
- Empower Border Force to do more to stop and seize small boats and search containers for hidden migrants.
- Stop illegal arrivals from gaining immediate entry into the asylum system if they have traveled through a safe country – like France.
- Speed up the removal of failed asylum seekers and dangerous foreign criminals.
- Increase the maximum sentence for illegally entering the UK, making it 5 years instead of six months
Labor party said the projects lack empathy and competence. Now things will change, people who move to the UK with illegal means to claim asylum will not have the same rights as those who immigrate through legal ways. According to the previous statistics of the year ending in March 2020, around 35,099 asylum claims were made in the UK with Albania, Iraq, and Iran providing the maximum number of candidates.
Home Office spends £13,354 per person on deportation flights. Between October and December 2020, the Home Office spent £4.3m deporting 322 people on 23 charter flights – which amounts to £13,354 per deportee.
People who moved through small boats with the help of people smugglers are approximately 8,000. The smugglers involved in this could face a life sentence. Ms. Patel said that authorities are going to introduce a “faster and fairer” program that would assist the most vulnerable. She said “serious organized crime groups” were exploiting people trying to enter the UK, and that they were the same groups involved in “serious violent crimes” in the UK. For example, the crimes were such as the smuggling of guns and drugs.” Families and young children have lost their lives at sea, in lorries and ship containers, which have put their trust in the hands of criminals,” she added. “The way to stop these deaths is to stop the trade that people have because of them. “According to her, the new measures will create “safe and legal pathways”.
She further said people should seek asylum in the EU where they first arrived, rather than in the UK. She explained that “If someone enters the UK illegally through a safe country where he/she can claim asylum, he is not seeking asylum from imminent danger, as the asylum system intends, but he is choosing the UK as a favorited place over others. She said the system was currently plagued by fake claims and legal disputes. But human rights lawyers have warned that the plans are illegal because they disregard Britain’s international obligations under the Refugee Convention.
Labour said the proposals would “do nothing to stop unsafe migration or deal with criminal gangs. “Under the new plans, anyone who deals with criminal gangs to bring them to the UK is granted a temporary residence permit and will be regularly reviewed for removal from the UK. Other suggestions include bringing in “strict” age checks to stop adults from entering the country under the pretext of having children. Hotels will no longer be used to accommodate transportation, and the government will push ahead with plans to expand the “Asylum State”. MS. Patel said asylum seekers with a criminal record who returned to the UK after deportation would face up to five years in prison. The current maximum is six months.
The criticism has already started on the new asylum law proposals. Where many other neighboring countries have faced way more asylum seekers and refugees for the last 5 years, the UK was well below the average level of them. The number of asylum applications in the UK last year was well below half of its 2002 peak. Four out of five refugees globally have fled to neighboring countries; Turkey hosts 3.6 million, and Germany has a refugee population of around 1.1 million, compared to the UK’s 133,000. Greece, France, and Spain have also accepted far more asylum seekers in recent years.