The British House of Commons approved a law on Wednesday evening by 289 votes to 230 that would prevent migrants entering the country illegally on rubber dinghies from making such crossings. In the future, London will be obliged to immediately detain those irregular immigrants and deny them the opportunity to apply for political asylum. Instead, migrants should be deported to their countries of origin or, if this poses unacceptable risks for them, to safe third countries. However, the law still has to be confirmed by the House of Lords, where there could still be a weakening of the regulations.
Johannes Leithäuser
Political correspondent for the United Kingdom and Ireland.
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The British government has always mentioned Rwanda as a possible destination country for deportations. He has signed a reception agreement with his government, which, according to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, is to apply "indefinitely". Braverman himself traveled to Rwanda a few weeks ago with selected British media to demonstrate that deported migrants are welcome there.
Where are the migrants detained until they are deported?
She visited accommodations under construction and praised their furnishings and appearance. The repatriation to Rwanda was temporarily halted by an emergency decision by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and is still a dispute in court in the UK. A decision by an appeals court is expected in the summer; it is expected that the Supreme Court will then deal with it.
One of the tightening measures adopted in the current legislative process is the clause that London should in future adhere to deportation decisions even if an urgent decision by the European Court of Human Rights temporarily prevents them. The government, on the other hand, announced in the final debate in the House of Commons that it would still relax the regulations for certain groups of people. This includes victims of human trafficking and minors.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May had argued that it could not be that a woman illegally lured to Britain under false promises and forced into prostitution was automatically threatened with deportation if she tried to escape her tormentors. May, however, refrained from putting her amendment to the vote after the Home Office gave assurances that these concerns would be addressed in the final wording of the bill.
The question of where the apprehended migrants should be interned until their deportation also remains unanswered. The government has brought chartered cruise ships or decommissioned military bases into play as accommodation options, but has so far only been able to secure one pontoon boat. The use of a disused air force base in the south-east of England was immediately met with local resistance; the Daily Telegraph newspaper complained that this damaged the reputation of the so-called Dam-Busters, those bomber crews equipped with special bombs who set out from this base to destroy German dams during the Second World War.