LONDON: The British government said Wednesday it will toughen immigration rules to make it harder for people who arrive by unauthorized routes such as small boats and truck stowaways to be given asylum.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said asylum-seekers who come to Britain through organized, sponsored routes, will have their refugee claims considered promptly and will be given support to settle. Those who sneak into the country will only be given temporary permission to stay, will receive limited benefits and will be “regularly reassessed for removal from the UK”
Patel said the system would be “fair but firm.”
“People are dying at sea, in lorries and in shipping containers,” she said. “To stop the deaths we must stop the trade in people that cause them.”
Refugee groups and immigration lawyers say the plan unfairly discriminates against refugees based on the way they got to the UK
“The proposals effectively create an unfair two-tiered system, whereby someone’s case and the support they receive is judged on how they entered the country and not on their need for protection,” said Mike Adamson, chief executive of the British Red Cross. “This is inhumane.”
But Patel said the changes are needed to stop illegal people-smuggling rings, and will make the system fairer because it won’t give an advantage to those who can pay for their passage.
“What is inhumane is allowing people to be smuggled through illegal migration, and that is what we want to stop,” she told the BBC. “We will create safe and legal routes to enable people to come to the United Kingdom in a safe way.”
Successive British governments have grappled with the issue of migrants using northern France as a launching point to reach Britain, either by stowing away in trucks or on ferries, or in small boats organized by people smugglers. In 2020, about 8,500 people arrived in Britain by crossing the Channel in small boats, and several died trying to make the journey.
Others have died while being smuggled by truck, including 39 Vietnamese migrants found dead in a refrigerated container in 2019 in the English town of Grays, east of London.
The British and French governments have worked for years to stop the people-smuggling journeys, without much success.
The new UK measures — which have not yet been made into legislation and approved by Parliament — also include longer sentences for people-smugglers and tougher checks to catch adults claiming to be children. The government also promised to speed up asylum decisions and quickly remove those who fail — promises British governments have made and failed to keep for years.
Critics of the government say bureaucratic backlogs left many asylum-seekers waiting years for decisions on their status. The coronavirus pandemic has bogged down the system even further.
The UK government says 35,099 people made asylum applications in Britain in the year to March 2020. That’s about a third of the number of applicants in Germany and less than half the total for Spain and France.
Britain’s position is also complicated by Brexit. Since leaving the European Union, the UK no longer has a deal with its European neighbors to return people who have snuck across the Channel.
UK plan for tougher asylum-seeker rules draws criticism
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UK plan for tougher asylum-seeker rules draws criticism
- Patel said asylum-seekers who come to Britain through organized, sponsored routes, will have their refugee claims considered promptly and will be given support to settle
- She said those who sneak into the country will only be given temporary permission to stay
Ukraine marks four years since Russian invasion
- Tuesday’s anniversary is expected to see the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Kyiv to mark the occasion
KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine was on Tuesday marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, with a show of solidarity from its staunchest allies and no immediate end in sight to Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II.
Tens of thousands of lives have been lost since the Kremlin ordered troops into Ukraine on February 24, 2022, confident of a quick victory but not expecting the fierce resistance that followed.
The worldwide fallout of the war has been immense, with many European countries increasing their own defense spending in anticipation of a possible confrontation of their own with Russia.
But diplomatic talks between the two sides, relaunched last year by the United States, have so far failed to halt the fighting, which has devastated Ukraine and left it facing the mammoth task — and bill — of reconstruction.
Tuesday’s anniversary is expected to see the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, in Kyiv to mark the occasion.
Both said they would take part in a “commemoration ceremony” and visit the site of a Ukrainian energy facility damaged by Russian strikes before attending a meeting with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
They are also due to take part in a videoconference meeting with Kyiv’s allies — the so-called “Coalition of the Willing” which includes Britain, France and Germany.
- Impasse -
Russia, which currently occupies nearly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory, bombs civilian areas and infrastructure on a daily basis.
The Russian bombardment has sparked the worst energy crisis since the start of the invasion, during a bitter winter.
Kyiv’s Western allies have slapped heavy sanctions on Moscow, forcing it to redirect its key oil exports toward new markets, particularly in Asia.
Despite heavy losses, Russian troops have in recent months advanced slowly on the frontline, particularly in the eastern Donbas region, which has been the epicenter of the bloody fighting and which Moscow wants to annex.
US-brokered talks are ongoing, with Zelensky unwavering in his demands for security guarantees from Washington before any talk of “compromise,” including on territory, with Russia.
Russia, though, has rejected Ukrainian proposals for the deployment of European troops in Ukraine after any ceasefire deal.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that he will pursue his objectives by force if diplomacy fails.
- Reconstruction -
The grinding four-year war has devastated Ukraine, which even before the fighting was one of the poorest countries in Europe.
According to a joint World Bank, European Union and United Nations report with Kyiv, published on Monday, the cost of post-war reconstruction is estimated at around $558 billion over the next decade.
Russia justified sending troops into Ukraine to prevent Ukraine’s ambition to join NATO, arguing that Kyiv’s membership of the transatlantic alliance would threaten its own security.
On Monday, during a medal ceremony to mark “Defenders of the Fatherland Day,” Putin insisted that his soldiers were defending Russia’s “borders” in Ukraine, to ensure “strategic parity” between powers and fight for the country’s “future.”
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic, for its part considers the war to be a resurgence of Russian imperialism aimed at subjugating the Ukrainian people.
In an interview with the BBC broadcast on Sunday, Zelensky said he believed Putin had “already started” World War III.
“Russia wants to impose on the world a different way of life and change the lives people have chosen for themselves,” he told the British public broadcaster.
