Resource

This new Bill builds on some of the much-needed reforms to the asylum system that the government has made since taking office, including tackling the backlog of asylum cases. It repeals the Safety of Rwanda Act, as the Government committed to do in response to Asylum Aid’s legal challenge.  It also revokes a significant amount of the Illegal Migration Act that aimed to strip those fleeing war, persecution and human rights abuses of their right to seek safety this country. However, Parliament should go further and repeal the whole IMA. The parts the Bill retains, including expanded detention powers, reduced protections available for survivors of modern slavery, and the treatment of asylum and human rights claims from countries including Albania, Georgia and India as automatically inadmissible, risk undermining the government’s commitment to the protection of human rights and to the rule of law. 

We also remain concerned that with this Bill the government is continuing to portray men, women and children crossing the Channel without pre-authorisation as criminals. While we support efforts to prosecute traffickers and smugglers, the authorities already have abundant powers to investigate and prosecute an individual if they suspect that person of committing trafficking or organised crime. 

People seeking asylum can already be subject to prosecution for illegal entry and facilitating illegal entry and we have seen this result in the repeated criminalisation of children who have wrongly been deemed to be adults by the Home Office and moved to adult prisons. With this Bill, we are concerned that many more people crossing the channel, including potential survivors of trafficking and torture, will be blocked from protection and be subjected en masse to expanded powers of investigations and prosecution. 

The Labour government needs to reset the narrative on asylum and immigration, moving away from the toxic debate that has fuelled terrible law and policy making in recent years. Further criminalisation and measures blocking people from protection  will do nothing to address the causes of forced displacement and unauthorised movement through Europe to the UK. It will instead intensify the vulnerability of those who will continue to rely on the services of smugglers in the absence of legal routes to protection, and leave survivors of trafficking and exploitation without support. What we need are fair, humane, and effective systems that promote human rights, protect the right to claim asylum in the UK and support positive international solutions including legal routes to protection.