Head Girl’s Team member and Politics student, Lily M, writes her views on the Illegal Migration Bill, currently being presented by the government to Parliament.
As a Politics student who is gripped by current affairs, I find it of primacy that we as a nation stay up to date with the policies our government is presenting in Parliament and their given impacts. This is why I have decided to write about the Illegal Migration Bill presented by the Conservative government and the Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
Members of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet claim the recently proposed bill on illegal immigration will stop people crossing the English Channel in small boats. Members of Parliament, on the 13th of March 2023, voted 312 to 250 in support of the Illegal Migration Bill that will change UK law so that those who arrive in the country via unsolicited channels will not be able to stay here and will be detained, then removed to their home country, or a safe third country. Now, at first glance, it is understandable that the Conservative government would wish to swiftly curtail the number of migrants entering our country, as a recent estimate suggested that £1.3 billion a year of the taxpayers’ money is spent on asylum seekers. However, this is a grave misconception.
Firstly, the current UK system dealing with illegal migrants and asylum seekers has many flaws of its own. In the latter half of 2021, out of 4,600 child asylum seekers that arrived without an adult in the United Kingdom and were accommodated in a hotel, 440 went missing. This number should be extremely troubling, especially since half of these children have still not been found and may be put through extreme trauma. Where was the protection and support? Where were the news headlines? This statistic, the cost-ineffectiveness and the backlog within the processing system suggests that immigration policy must be changed for the better, but it is not clear yet whether this proposed bill will correct the current issues.
The current attitude towards asylum seekers that the cabinet is creating could be described as toxic, with Braverman referring to migrants arriving on our shores having fled from war torn countries and persecution on many levels as ‘an invasion’. She claimed that the programme of sending immigrants to Rwanda was her ‘dream’ and ‘obsession’, a scheme which was later halted due to a European Court of Human Rights injunction, with the whole idea being deemed unlawful. Animosity towards migrants has always been found within societies, however a government pushing such rhetoric seems dangerous; creating an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ situation, with the ‘law-abiding patriotic majority’ having had enough of people arriving on small boats, according to the Home Secretary.
Now with a background laid out, the potential implications of the presented bill must be discussed. Part of the claimed aims of the policy is to reduce human trafficking; an issue that most people can agree upon. However, the nature of the bill means that anyone who has entered into the country through unofficial channels will be detained; this means that, for example, if a woman who has been trafficked to Britain through an illegal passage, manages to reach out to the police force, she will be detained and not allowed to access support systems instead of getting the protection she needs. This will deter victims of human trafficking from coming forward, since they will be imprisoned, thus potentially actually helping human traffickers by giving them ammunition to reduce escapees, therefore showing the ineffectiveness and negative impact of the policy. We can also see how desperate women and children fleeing persecution from countries that have been torn apart by war such as Afghanistan and Syria will be turned away at the shores of Dover.
This plan to tackle people smuggling and trafficking as well as reduce immigration numbers has the potential to tarnish the UK’s reputation on the world stage as a progressive nation. The United Nations Human Rights Council stated that it was a ‘clear breach’ of international law, as well as contravening the Human Rights Agreement of 1998.
When it is a Ukrainian refugee crisis, there are clear channels for them to reach the country and programmes set for them to be introduced into UK homes, but when the asylum-seekers are coming from North African countries or Syria and Afghanistan, they are invaders who must be sent away immediately with no welfare provision. Why is this?
Lily M, UVI
Photo Credit: PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay
