LONDON (AP) – A committee of British lawmakers said yesterday that the United Kingdom (UK) will break its international human rights commitments if it goes through with government plans to detain and deport people who cross the English Channel in small boats. Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights said the Illegal Migration Bill “breaches a number of the UK’s international human rights obligations and risks breaching others”.
Scottish National Party lawmaker Joanna Cherry, who chairs the committee, said the law would leave most refugees and victims of modern slavery with no way of seeking asylum in Britain.
“By treating victims of modern slavery as ‘illegal migrants’ subject to detention and removal, this bill would breach our legal obligations to such victims and would risk increasing trafficking of vulnerable people,” she said.
The committee urged the government to make sweeping amendments to the bill, including exempting trafficking victims and curbing the government’s power to detain people indefinitely. The government, which had pledged to “stop the boats”, is unlikely to heed the recommendations.
The legislation bars asylum claims by anyone who reaches the UK by unauthorised means, and compels officials to detain and then deport refugees and migrants “to their home country or a safe third country”, such as Rwanda.
Once deported, they would be banned from ever re-entering the UK, they said.
