UK plan would let refugees be sent abroad
LONDON — The British government Tuesday proposed a plan that would allow asylum seekers to be moved out of the country while their applications are processed and to arrest those who arrive by boat across the English Channel, policies that rights groups say would violate international laws.
The plan, called the Nationality and Borders Bill, was brought forth by British Home Secretary Priti Patel for a first reading in Parliament on Tuesday. It’s the latest measure introduced by the government to “fix the broken asylum system,” as the Home Office described it in a statement.
Patel, in a statement before the bill’s introduction, said the bill “delivers on what the British people have voted for time and time again — for the UK to take full control of its borders.”
It would make entering the country illegally a crime, give authorities more scope to make arrests, and make it easier “to remove someone to a safe country while their asylum claim is processed,” the Home Office said.
The plan would place Britain in the company of Denmark, which recently passed a law allowing for the offshore detention of refugees, and Australia, which already has put in place similar measures.
The bill differentiates between refugees depending on how they reach Britain, either through resettlement or by irregular means, which would be treated as a crime.
The bill also introduces the option for asylum seekers to be moved to a third country while their applications are processed, but that would be contingent on new international agreements. Some fear that the plan could open the door for asylum seekers to be held in detention centers abroad, where their rights and safety could be at risk.
Michelle Pace, a professor in global studies at Roskilde University in Denmark and an associate fellow at a British think tank Chatham House, said, “From a purely legal position, there is no way that these plans can actually be implemented.”
She noted that any policy that involved the expulsion of asylum seekers would violate the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, to which Australia, Britain and Denmark are signatories.