Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister unveils on Tuesday a new plan to stop tens of thousands of migrants arriving in the country in small vessels across the English Channel- an associate of the Atlantic Ocean that splits Southern England from northern France. Giving a warning, he said that those who enter the UK illegally will not be allowed to declare asylum.
If you come here illegally, you can’t claim asylum. You can’t benefit from our modern slavery protections. You can’t make spurious human rights claims and you can’t stay.
We will detain those who come here illegally and then remove them in weeks, either to their own country if it is safe to do so. Or to a Safe Third Country like Rwanda and once you are removed, you will be banned as you are in America and Australia from ever re-entering our country.”
Rishi Sunak.
The statement calls for people reaching by boat to be detained for 28 days and then deported, with exceptions only for children, those medically incapable to fly, and people in danger of severe harm, and with limited grounds for appeal. Migrants who are targets of human trafficking would be barred from using Britain’s modern slavery laws to control deportation.
Britain receives more irregular asylum-seekers than some European nations such as Italy, Germany, or France. But thousands of migrants from around the world travel to northern France each year in hopes of reaching the U.K., drawn by family ties, the English language, or the sensed ease of getting a job.
Rights groups and opposition parties have condemned the recent law and say that the plan is useless and unfairly scapegoats helpless refugees. More than 45,000 people arrived in Britain by boat in 2022, up from 28,000 in 2021 and 8,500 in 2020, the news agency AP reported.
