The draft law on illegal migration is the name of the project by which the British government wants to prevent irregular entry into the country. Namely, anyone who enters the country without papers should immediately be declared persona non grata and should not have any right to asylum in the future.
At the same time, according to the new law, it would be irrelevant to the British whether that person is, say, a refugee from Syria or someone from a country of origin that is considered safe and who is looking for a job on the Island, writes the German Spiegel.
The House of Commons voted on Wednesday in favor of the bill with a majority of 59 MPs. Before the law can come into force, it still needs to be approved by the House of Lords.
The draft law came in the light of the story about the plane from Rwanda that landed on the Island these days. The people from the plane were immediately deported because they did not have papers. The hard-line Tories are demanding that the UK simply leave the human rights convention if the bill does not have the support of others.
Under the United Nations Refugee Convention, which also applies to the UK, any persecuted person has the right to apply for asylum in a safe country of their choice - regardless of how they got there. The Refugee Council and Barnardo's estimates that the British authorities could detain up to 15.000 unaccompanied minors in the next three years under the new law.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak does not dispute this. His government argues that irregular immigration -- which Interior Secretary Braverman once called an "invasion" -- cannot be stopped by tough laws.
As many as 45.000 migrants came to Great Britain via the English Channel last year. Considerably less than Germany, for example, receives. But for the Conservatives, the relatively high numbers are a sensitive issue: they have promised that Britain will take back control of its borders through Brexit. Since then, strict immigration rules apply to EU citizens. But now thousands of non-EU citizens are crossing the border on water. They are attracted by weak labor regulations, the language is familiar to most, and many already have friends and relatives in the country. The next period will show whether the draft law is a good idea or not.
I.D./Spiegel
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