UN Refugee Agency 'Profoundly Concerned' With UK's New Illegal Migration Bill

Expressing concern over the matter, the UNHCR in its statement said that If passed, the UK asylum legislation "would amount to an asylum ban."

UK PM Rishi Sunak unveiled new law to stop illegal migrants

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New Delhi: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Tuesday said that it is “profoundly concerned” by the UK government's new Illegal Migration Bill which proposes to deport asylum seekers "as soon as reasonably practicable."

Expressing concern over the matter, the UNHCR in its statement said that If passed, the UK asylum legislation "would amount to an asylum ban." 

It accused Rishi Sunak's government of "extinguishing the right to seek refugee protection in the United Kingdom" after it unveiled the new law to stop migrants from crossing the Channel illegally on small boats.

The measure is part of attempts to address an increase in the number of people arriving in the UK via Channel crossings each year, which rose from around 300 in 2018 to more than 45,000 in 2022, up 500% in the last two years. 

According to the refugee agency, the new bill would "deny protection to many asylum-seekers in need of safety and protection" if it gets implemented, adding, that this would be "a clear breach of the Refugee Convention and would undermine a longstanding, humanitarian tradition of which the British people are rightly proud."

The Refugee Convention first agreed in 1951, is a multilateral treaty that sets out who qualifies as a refugee and the obligations of signatory states to protect them.

Earlier in parliament, home secretary Suella Braverman acknowledged that there was a more than 50% chance that the Bill would violate human rights laws.

The government said on the first page of the draft legislation that it may not be compatible with Britain's obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.

“This does not mean that the provisions in the bill are incompatible with the convention rights, only that there is a more 50 percent chance that they may not be,” the home secretary wrote in a separate letter to MPs.

"We urge the government, and all MPs and peers, to reconsider the bill and instead pursue more humane and practical policy solutions,” the statement read.