On the day the European Court of Human Rights suspended, on June 14, 2022, the first flight from London to Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, there were six immigrants on board a device with a capacity of 220 passengers. The Conservative British government, led by Boris Johnson at the time, was determined until the last minute to show its voters and the rest of the world that it was serious about its commitment to ending illegal immigration. One year later, the new prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has finally succeeded in passing a very tough Illegal Immigration Act with a dubious legal framework. He did just as he arrived at the island of Portland, on the south coast of England, the aunt stockholm, a giant ship on which Downing Street wanted to accommodate newcomers to the country after crossing the treacherous waters of the English Channel. There are nearly 500 people. The first 50 people, the government says, will start living in these “floating prisons” in the coming weeks, according to critical humanitarian organizations. Across the UK, around 160,000 people are waiting while authorities process their asylum applications. Last year, more than 46,000 arrived in flimsy boats to the country’s south coast.

Sunak and Interior Minister Suella Braverman, had insisted on a bold move to appease the hard wing of their party, but realized they could not open the door to the sea.

“Ministers use vulnerable and traumatized people for political purposes. They are feeding the public with a disinformation campaign around issues relating to asylum rights, and are causing division and hatred,” said Sacha Deshmukh, executive director of the UK division of Amnesty International. “The completely inappropriate use of former military barracks and other accommodation facilities must end, as should this egregious law or the agreement with Rwanda. [para deportar inmigrantes]Deshmukh demands.

The migration crisis facing the British government is a perfect storm… in a glass of water. It is true that the number of people crossing the channel from the French coast to England has experienced significant exponential growth in recent years. Last year there were nearly 46,000 immigrants; in 2021, 28,500; in 2020, 8,466; in 2019 there were 1,843; in 2018, the first in which the UK Government began counting intercepted immigrants, 299. This may seem alarming, but Frontex, the EU border agency, last year detected around 330,000 irregular community boundary crossings. And about 105,000 people arrived on the Italian coast.

When Brexit became a reality, with all its consequences, on 31 December 2020, the United Kingdom stopped implementing Dublin Regulation III, the rules that define which countries are suitable to process asylum applications. Usually, this is the first place applicants arrive. London does not want to include refugee and asylum issues in its negotiations with Brussels. The result: since then, the Conservative government has been desperately seeking bilateral agreements with other EU countries – especially with France – and has always received the same response. This is an issue that suits the institutions of society to negotiate.

The solution is to pass draconian laws which, in the opinion of many experts, are in direct conflict with international law. “Thanks to this government, the UK’s historic reputation as a refugee hosting country, of which we are so proud, has become a thing of the past,” lamented Josie Naughton, director of refugee aid organization Choose Love. “This is a law that effectively takes away the right to asylum for many people,” he said.

This new regulation, in the parliamentary process, was accompanied by a political campaign driven by this slogan Stop Boat (Let’s Stop the Boat), which Sunak incorporates into a poster on his podium whenever he addresses the subject. And his minister, Braverman, has no qualms about calling the arrival of illegal immigrants an “invasion.”

As the legal text agrees, all persons who reach shore in a boat surreptitiously crossing the English Channel will see their asylum application rejected as inadmissible. And unlike the current law, which imposes a five to 10 year re-entry ban on those expelled from the country for trying to enter the country illegally, Sunak’s government wants the ban to last for life. The new law on Illegal Immigration would impose an obligation on anyone serving as Minister of Home Affairs to deport all irregular persons to a third country – as was tried in the Rwanda case – “as soon as possible”.

“The law will allow the government to commit human rights violations without consequence. Excluding refugees and immigrants from the protection of the Human Rights Law is abhorrent and wrong. Human rights are universal and the Executive does not have the right to choose who deserves them and who doesn’t”, said the humanitarian organization Liberty, which managed to garner signatures and support from nearly 300 NGOs to continue fighting Sunak’s immigration policies.

The prime minister promised early in his term that he would halve the number of people waiting to apply for asylum, and that he would end the boatloads of irregular migrants. The opposition Labor Party denounced the lack of means, organization and plans to ease administrative bottlenecks, while avoiding substantive criticism of the law to avoid spooking voters. The latest YouGov poll indicates that three in four Britons (73%) believe the government is responding to the migration crisis in an incompetent or chaotic manner. However, while only 15% of Conservative voters accused Sunak of cruelly and unfairly treating irregular migrants to Britain, around 70% of Labor voters felt this way.

Minister Braverman used, in the preamble to the new law, an unusual warning in which he made clear the possibility that the text partially violated the European Convention on Human Rights (although at the same time he reassured his belief that in the end it would not be). The Conservative government has made clear its willingness to risk violating international law before its own electorate.

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