At least six out of ten (60%) of all those who made the dangerous Channel crossing to the UK in small boats in 2022 would be recognised as refugees through the asylum process, according to new analysis from the Refugee Council.
The research by the Refugee Council states that “Over 25,000 men, women and children who crossed the channel in 2022 would be recognised as refugees if the UK Government processed their asylum applications.”
Eritrea consistently ranks among the top 5 countries of origin, and Eritreans comprised a significant proportion of those making these sea journeys in 2022. Eritreans also have asylum grant rates of between 80% and 86% according to the Refugee Council, indicating that they are overwhelmingly regarded as genuine refugees.
However, the ‘Illegal Migration’ Bill that was presented to parliament by Home Secretary Suella Braverman and which is currently at Committee stage, will deny genuine refugees a hearing and disallow them from making any claim for asylum. Furthermore, it would detain them all – men, women, youth, children, babies, the elderly – simply on the basis of the method of transport and route they used to enter Britain. The UK government’s proposed legislation would leave every sea-borne asylum-seeker without exception facing long periods locked up in detention, while ‘legal’ routes for entry remain limited and undefined.
Even the UK government itself is unsure whether this proposed legislation abides by international legislation signed and ratified by the nation. It appears the government is prepared to break international law and Britain’s signed legal commitments in order to cut off entry into the UK for anyone, however genuine their need for asylum and refuge may be.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states unequivocally: “Everyone has the right to seek and enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution” (Article 14). The Refugee Convention defines a refugee as “someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.”
Eritreans have a particularly strong case for asylum because of the extreme political and religious persecution underway in their nation. However, their claims would not even be seen or heard under the proposed legislation, which clearly contravenes Article 14 of the UDHR, as well as the UK’s obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which it co-drafted.
Before the decision of the UK left the European Union following a referendum, it was easy to return asylum-seekers to other European countries under the Dublin Convention, which allowed for a person to be returned to the first European country he or she entered. Those coming across the Channel were often returned to France (except those under 18 years of age). Ironically, since Brexit, this method of returning asylum claimants to mainland Europe is closed to the British government.
Human Rights Concern –Eritrea (HRCE) not only regards the proposed legislation as morally wrong, lacking any compassion or attempt to offer justice to some of the world’s most vulnerable people; the proposals also appear to be utterly incompatible with the international principles and treaties which Britain signed, ratified and formally adhered to.
HRCE therefore calls upon members of the UK parliament to refuse to give legal assent this most retrograde legislation in its current form, which contravenes the UK’s longstanding commitments under international law, and to ensure the passage of amendments that will bring it in line with the country’s obligations, and in the absence of defined, feasible and plausible legal routes, to ensure refugees and asylum receive a fair hearing, regardless of how they arrived.
Human Rights Concern – Eritrea (HRCE)
