The British government has introduced a bill to "stop the boats" of migrants in the English Channel, crossings that are reaching record levels and putting the asylum system under pressure. In 2022, more than 45,700 migrants made this perilous journey.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, there were 299 in 2018. The numbers then jumped to 1,843 in 2019, then 8,466 in 2020 and 28,526 in 2021. The trend has continued since the beginning of the year with more than 3,000 arrivals on English shores (twice as many as last year), including nearly 200 still on Monday.
There were around 74,751 asylum applications in the UK in 2022. But the system is overwhelmed by recent influxes: at the end of December, more than 160,000 asylum seekers were waiting for a decision, a record. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has decided to turn the screw with his bill.
A law that would "end the right to asylum"
"If you arrive irregularly, you cannot apply for asylum. You cannot benefit from our modern slavery protections. You can't make false human rights claims and you can't stay" in the UK, he said.
"It's hard but it's necessary. And that's right," he said. "We will detain people who come here illegally, and then we will send them back within a few weeks," either to their country or to a country deemed safe.
"The law, if passed, will amount to ending asylum – depriving those who arrive in the UK illegally of the right to seek refugee protection, regardless of the genuineness and urgency of their claim," the UN refugee agency said in a statement, calling for its review.
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- Migrants
- United Kingdom