Violate international law？ Britain’s Illegal Immigration Act has caused great controversy.

　　□ Rule of Law Daily reporter Wang Wei

　　A British bill on illegal immigration was passed in Parliament on the 18th. This bill is controversial because it prevents illegal immigrants from applying for asylum and transferring illegal immigrants to a third country. Volcker Turk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that the adoption of the bill may lead other countries to follow suit, which is a "worrying precedent". The international community believes that this new legislation has greatly weakened the legal framework for the protection of many refugees and faces serious risks of violating international law.

　　Pull back and forth

　　According to media reports, after a day of heated debate, the lower house of the British Parliament rejected the last amendment to the Illegal Immigration Act proposed by the upper house of Parliament on the 18th, including the restrictions on the detention time of children immigrants, which "cleared the last obstacle that has long plagued the British Parliament".

　　The British Parliament then said in a statement: "As the two houses reached an agreement on the text of the bill, the Illegal Immigration Bill was passed in Parliament." At present, the Illegal Immigration Bill can be sent to King Charles III of England and will become law after formal approval.

　　As part of the British government’s action to stop illegal immigration by boat, the contents of the bill include: prohibiting immigrants arriving through the English Channel and other "illegal" ways from applying for asylum in the UK; The above-mentioned personnel will be detained by the government and deported or transferred to a "safe third country", such as Rwanda. They will be banned from entering Britain again.

　　"Illegal immigration has undermined the integrity of our immigration system," said Robert Jenrick, Minister of State for Immigration Affairs at the British Home Office. "This is why we want to stop illegal immigration ships and ensure the security of our borders. This bill is committed to achieving this goal."

　　In fact, around this bill, the upper house of the British Parliament strongly opposed it and proposed many amendments, but they were all rejected in the lower house of parliament. According to British law, the upper house of parliament only has the right to amend the bill and has no right to veto it. The process of "pulling" the bill back and forth between the House of Commons and the House of Lords has also been dubbed by the local media as "parliamentary table tennis" in British politics.

　　According to the report, the new bill still faces legal obstacles in dealing with illegal immigrants. However, a spokesman for British Prime Minister Rich Sunak said on the 18th that he welcomed the passage of the Illegal Immigration Bill by the British Parliament and said that the government was confident of success in the "legal challenge" of the High Court.

　　Worrying

　　In recent years, people from Africa and the Middle East have been sneaking into Britain from France and other countries through the English Channel, which has long plagued the British government.

　　According to the statistics of the British government, more than 45,000 people crossed the English Channel by boat and landed in Britain last year, setting a new record of more than 28,000 people in 2021, more than five times that of 8,404 people in 2020. The data also shows that in 2022, more than 74,000 asylum applications were received (only counting the main applicants), more than twice as many as in 2019, the highest since 2003.

　　Murray, Home Secretary of the House of Lords of the Conservative government, said that the number of immigrants has overwhelmed the British asylum system, and their daily accommodation costs taxpayers about 6 million pounds (1 pound is about 9.24 yuan).

　　According to the Associated Press and other media, the British government believes that many stowaways are economic migrants rather than refugees. Sunak has repeatedly stressed that stopping illegal immigrants is a "priority" for Britain. He pointed out that most of these people who arrived in Britain by boat did not face imminent life threats, and they had passed through many other safe European countries before crossing the English Channel.

　　Sura braverman, the British Home Secretary, said that stowaways "have values that are contrary to our country" and are related to "higher level crimes".

　　In April last year, the British government reached an agreement with the Rwandan government on the repatriation of illegal immigrants, and agreed to provide corresponding funds to Rwanda. However, due to the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights, the first charter flight scheduled to carry stowaways to Britain to Rwanda last June was cancelled at the last minute.

　　The British High Court ruled last year that the so-called "Rwanda Plan" was legal. On June 29 this year, the British Court of Appeal overturned the previous judgment and ruled that the plan was illegal. The British government subsequently said that it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

　　Many members of the Conservative Party, the ruling party in Britain, believe that if stowaways knew that they could not stay in Britain, they would not risk their lives and pay thousands of pounds to criminals to enter Britain illegally.

　　Draw criticism

　　The British government’s move to promote the illegal immigration bill has caused controversy. Many people in Britain and abroad have criticized that the measures to deal with illegal immigrants are "inhuman" and "ineffective", and those who have escaped from difficulties such as war should not be repatriated. This bill is "not feasible".

　　On the day when the British Parliament passed the Illegal Immigration Act, a barge with a capacity of 500 people arrived in Britain and was towed to Portland Port, Dorset. In April, the British government announced that it would rent this barge to temporarily resettle immigrants waiting for asylum applications. The first batch will receive about 500 adult male immigrants.

　　This practice has also attracted criticism in Britain and abroad. Some immigrant rights groups questioned that the lack of facilities on the barge "isolated" hundreds of people here. However, the British government insists that it is cheaper to accommodate immigrants by barge than by hotels, which can cope with the expenditure pressure brought by the sharp increase in the number of immigrants crossing the English Channel.

　　According to media reports, Britain was in political turmoil last year and experienced three prime ministers. After the current Prime Minister Sunak took office in October last year, Sura braverman, who resigned from the previous Elizabeth Trass government, was appointed as the Minister of the Interior again. The new cabinet was immediately under pressure from public opinion because the British immigration processing center was exposed to overcrowding and poor environment.

　　Regarding the newly passed bill, Fraser, head of the refugee support department of the British Red Cross, said that the day when the bill becomes law will be a "dark day". "This will make many refugees from Sudan, Syria and other places fall into a permanent predicament of detention and poverty."

　　The UNHCR is deeply concerned about this and believes that the bill will deprive people of the right to asylum.

　　The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees warned on the 18th that this bill "violates international law" and will expose refugees to "serious risks". It has repeatedly criticized the British side for "outsourcing the responsibility of protecting immigrants and refugees to a third country".

　　Some commentators pointed out that some western countries, led by the United States, have long exported wars and turmoil to interfere in other countries’ internal affairs and create humanitarian disasters, which are the initiators of the refugee problem. The countries concerned should seriously reflect on the evil consequences caused by their own actions, effectively eliminate the root causes of refugees and assume their due responsibilities on the refugee issue.