Refugee charities have condemned the government’s plans to clear the asylum backlog announced today.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) accused the government of “militarising the Channel” and of “performative cruelty towards and scapegoating of refugeees”.
The prime minister Rishi Sunak announced a series of measures in the House of Commons on 13 December which he said would “abolish the backlog of initial asylum decisions by the end of next year”.
Downing Street later clarified that this applied to the 92,601 outstanding claims lodged before the controversial Nationalities and Borders Act came into force on 28 June.
The measures include a new unit with 700 staff to monitor small boats in the English Channel, a commitment to double the number of asylum caseworkers and clear guidance to them to limit claims from Albanians.
They will also end the use of hotels to house asylum seekers, with plans proposed to place 10,000 individuals in disused holiday camps, student halls and military sites.
Mr Sunak promised to introduce new laws next year to “make unambiguously clear that if you enter the UK illegally, you should not be allowed to remain here”.
Megan Knowles of the JRS was scathing of the plans: “Finding more ways to criminalise, punish and exclude refugees is a distraction from real issues – and it is a dangerous distraction for which human beings, our sisters and brothers, will pay the price.”
The proposed laws would require refugees to reach the UK via formal routes, which normally demand a visit to an embassy, to be granted asylum.
Ms Knowles said that “people fleeing for their lives aren’t able to stop off at embassies – we saw this as people fled Afghanistan, and continue to flee Ukraine”.
She continued: “To deny asylum to people arriving informally – utilising incredible human strength and resilience – is to abandon our duty to refugees, and abandon our recognition of human dignity.
“To do so when there are no formal routes is not only doubly wrong – it is cravenly dishonest.”
The JRS also warned that the government was “making it harder for victims of modern slavery to gain recognition”.
Mr Sunak said he would “significantly raise the threshold someone has to meet” to be considered a victim of modern slavery, echoing remarks made in recent months by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, about asylum seekers “exploiting” modern slavery laws.
Speaking in the Commons, the former prime minister Theresa May, who introduced modern slavery legislation, warned him that “people smuggling and people trafficking are distinct and separate crimes”, and urged him not to “diminish our world-leading protections for the victims of this terrible, horrific crime”.
Other refugee charities were sharply critical of the plans. The Refugee Council called the proposals “deeply disturbing”, while Refugee Action said they were “cruel, ineffective and unlawful and will do nothing to fix the real problems in the system”.
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