The Jesuit Refugee Service has urged the new government to build an asylum system that is “just, humane, and reflects our values as a society”.
In a letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Sarah Teather, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service, thanks her for scrapping the “cruel and unworkable” Rwanda scheme.
She also urges her to restore the “right to asylum”, end immigration detention and counter the hostile environment, officially termed the “compliant environment”.
Teather specifically refers to the Nationality and Borders Act and the Illegal Migration Act, which bans most refugees from claiming asylum at all.
“The vast majority of people ruled inadmissible will be impossible to remove, and therefore simply be trapped in indefinite limbo, at risk of destitution and exploitation. These laws punish refugees for how they travel, when the most do not have a choice, and there are virtually no safe, accessible routes for people to seek asylum in the UK,” she says. “Such a punitive approach places lives at risk.”
She also critiques detention as a “profoundly traumatic experience causing long-term harm” and says that survivors of torture who are detained regularly liken detention to torture.
“People in the asylum and immigration systems should be supported to navigate their claims in the community. Until this is achieved, urgently implementing the Brook House Inquiry recommendations, including a time limit of 28 days on immigration detention, would limit its harm,” she adds.
“With such a large majority, your party has been handed power on a significant scale. We urge you to deliver a more humane system and help create a society rooted in justice and care for one another,” she concludes.
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