Opinion
The illegal immigration law has effectively made access to asylum in the UK impossible, and the chaos and insecurity are driving people underground
Fri Nov 17, 2023 3:32 p.m. GMT
Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday, one of the asylum seekers involved in the case against the government bravely spoke anonymously to the BBC. The man in his 20s, who arrived in Britain 18 months ago from a war-ravaged Middle Eastern country, said he felt “relieved” by the decision. “The situation has changed and I hope that the next phase will be more positive and everything will be better,” he said.
This sense of relief was likely undermined by the prime minister’s brazen response that same afternoon that the government would move forward with the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda by creating a new treaty. He was probably even more dismayed by immigration minister Robert Jenrick’s even more decisive words that it was “absolutely crucial that flights to Rwanda start in the spring”.
For those we work with at the Refugee Council and who are in the asylum system, fear and anxiety are the main emotions. Since Boris Johnson announced the Rwanda plan in April 2022, we have seen much suffering and trauma for people facing deportation to the East African country to process their asylum claims.
Letters have been received, threateningly called “letters of intent,” warning people that forcible deportation is being considered. A recent request for information found that more than 24,000 people had received the letters between January 2021 and March this year.
Every time a person receives one, it causes significant stress. We are aware of some cases where the impact on people’s mental health has been so severe that it has led to self-harm and suicide attempts. This is the harsh reality of the lived experience of men, women and children from countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea – where oppressive regimes hunt their opponents – and from countries like Sudan and Syria where wars rage.
Rishi Sunak vows emergency legislation to save Rwanda’s plan – video
When it comes to the legal and political disputes surrounding Rwanda, it is easy to forget that these are the people affected. They are the faces behind the statistics and the files. It is our fellow human beings who, through no fault of their own, had to leave their homes and give up their livelihoods. The chaos and uncertainty they have faced since the government launched its Rwanda program will now only get worse.
In conversations with Interior Ministry officials, they tacitly admit that without the Rwanda agreement, the flagship illegal migration law will become a lame law. The law will, in the words of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, “preclude access to asylum in the UK”. Anyone who enters the country irregularly cannot apply for asylum and must expect deportation to a so-called safe third country. When the law was first published as a draft law in March, the government assumed that Rwanda would be this safe third country. It was not expected that the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court would conclude that the deal was unlawful because Rwanda is unsafe for asylum seekers.
I understand that the Home Office officials tasked with implementing the law were shocked when the ruling came down. That’s because there is no Plan B. Their goal now is simply to push forward and implement the law on illegal migration. It’s inconceivable that it won’t happen.
The law applies to anyone who has entered the country with royal assent to apply for asylum since July 20. Officials tell us privately that the number of asylum applications so far this year could be as high as 30,000 people. Your whole life remains in limbo. And it creates a further backlog on top of the one the government is already trying to address in its desperate efforts to deal with more than 120,000 cases in the asylum system that have piled up due to gross mismanagement and an obsession with creating a hostile environment.
And it’s getting worse. Evidence is emerging from organizations across the country that support people seeking asylum that shows fear is driving people to disappear and go underground as political noise grows over flights to Rwanda. We know from our experience that this is likely to lead to various forms of exploitation, trafficking and abuse.
For a government and a prime minister who appear to have decided to stake their legacy on this Rwanda plan, this is merely collateral damage. All that matters is getting planes in the air, because in their opinion that is the ultimate deterrent to desperate people fleeing their own countries – the only way to “stop the boats.”
This is of course poorly thought out. As the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory says: “There is no single policy that alone can reduce Channel crossings, and the Rwanda agreement was no exception.”
But it’s not just about what works and what doesn’t to stop the boats. It’s about who we are as a country and who we want to be. It’s about standing up for the right to asylum, giving people a fair hearing and treating them with the dignity and humanity they deserve.
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