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The UK government has successfully pushed through the “Illegal Migration Bill” despite opposition and concerns about its impact on human rights and refugees.
The bill will become a law once it receives approval from the King, presenting major hurdles for migrants entering the UK, particularly those crossing the Channel in small boats.
The upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords, tried to make a series of amendments to the bill, including reinserting time limits on the amount of time children could be detained, as well as ensuring people were protected under the Modern Slavery act.
However, the government reversed most of those amendments in a late-night voting session on July 17.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick told the Commons: “The message and the means must be absolutely clear and unambiguous: if people come to the UK illegally, they will not be able to stay here. Instead, they will be detained and returned to their home country or removed to a safe third country.
“We cannot accept amendments that provide for exceptions, qualifications and loopholes that would simply perpetuate the current cycle of delays and endless late and repeated legal challenges to removal”.
The recently passed law classifies crossings like these as “illegal,” which means that anyone caught doing it will be denied the opportunity to apply for asylum and effectively strip them of their right to seek protection.
Additionally, the law grants the government the power to return those who arrive to their home country or to safe third countries they passed through before reaching the UK.
The UK considers 57 countries around the world as safe, including all EU member states.
However, getting the agreement of those safe third countries has become difficult since the UK left the EU and the Dublin treaty.
The treaty allowed countries to send migrants back to the first country they entered in the EU or to a country where they had already started the asylum process.
The bill gives the Home Secretary (Interior Minister) Suella Braverman a “legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally.”
But the United Nations has expressed worry about the bill, saying it goes against the UK’s obligations to uphold international human rights and protect refugees.
They believe the law will have serious consequences for people who need international protection.
“This bill sets a worrying precedent for dismantling asylum-related obligations that other countries, including in Europe, may be tempted to follow, with a potentially adverse effect on the international refugee and human rights protection system as a whole,” the UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk said.
Türk urged the UK government to reaffirm its commitment to human rights by reversing the law and upholding its obligations to protect those in need of international protection.