2023-06-11 13:38:01
LONDON (AP) — A committee of British lawmakers said Sunday the UK will be in breach of its international human rights commitments if it goes ahead with government plans to detain and deport people who cross the English Channel on small barges.
Parliament’s Joint Commission on Human Rights noted that the Illegal Migration Act “breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations and threatens to breach others.”
Scottish National Party lawmaker Johanna Cherry, who chairs the commission, said the law would deprive most refugees and victims of modern slavery of the ability to seek asylum in Britain.
“By treating victims of modern slavery as ‘illegal immigrants’ subject to detention and deportation, this law would violate our legal obligations to such victims and threaten to increase trafficking in vulnerable persons,” he said.
The commission urged the government to make sweeping reforms to the law, including exempting trafficking victims and reducing the government’s power to detain people indefinitely. The government, which has promised to “stop the ships”, is unlikely to follow through on the recommendations.
The law prohibits anyone arriving in the UK by unauthorized means from claiming asylum, and requires officials to detain and then deport refugees and migrants “to their home country or to a safe third country” such as Rwanda. Once deported, they would be forever barred from re-entering the UK.
Britain’s Conservative government has said the law will deter tens of thousands of people from making the dangerous canal voyages and end the business model of criminal gangs following the voyages. Critics, including the United Nations refugee agency, have called the law unethical and unfeasible.
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