British charities say government immigration plan will hit most vulnerable

Refugee groups have criticised the UK government’s controversial new measures to tackle immigration and asylum seekers as “militarised”, saying the Home Office’s actions and rhetoric risk sowing division and punishing those who need help most.

The Home Office on Wednesday announced plans to crack down on people arriving on British shores in small boats, including a new investigation and intelligence service, an expansion of detention centres for failed asylum seekers and “crushing criminal smuggling rings”.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said the government wants to increase the rate of deportations of people whose asylum claims have been rejected to “the highest level since 2018”.

Riots in the UK earlier this month were fuelled by anti-immigration sentiment, with two hotels housing asylum seekers targeted by hordes of people.

Every year, thousands of people arrive in the UK on small boats, often from war zones in the Middle East and Asia, or from countries facing political, religious or ethnic persecution.

Refugee groups said the government’s new plan failed to create safe routes for asylum seekers and would not stop those in need of asylum from coming to the UK.

Charity Refugee Action, an organisation that supports asylum seekers in the UK, said it was “disappointing” that the government was focusing on crime and not offering a positive vision for asylum seekers.

Tim Naor Hilton, Chief Executive of Refugee Action, said The New Arab that the government should focus on “creating an anti-racist asylum system that respects people’s rights, lifts bans on work, and houses people with dignity in our communities.”

“Again, the people most likely to fall victim to these policies of incarceration and deportation will come from racialized communities and from countries that were once British colonies.”

Stopping the arrival of small boats and cutting immigration were among the Labour Party’s key manifesto promises when it won a landslide victory on July 4.

Immigration has been a key political issue for successive Conservative governments for many years, with repeated promises to reduce numbers, putting refugees at the centre of the political debate.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, programme director for refugee and migrant rights at Amnesty International UK, said the government was “spreading a centuries-old message of fear and hostility towards those most affected by violence and trauma”.

Valdez-Symonds said The guard that the ‘insured’ approach will punish many of those most in need of asylum, ‘the people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation’.

Afghan, Syrian, Iranian and Pakistani nationalities are among the most common nationalities among asylum seekers in the UK.

Labour’s plan is intended to replace the Conservative government’s failed policy of resettling asylum seekers to Rwanda – a policy strongly opposed by human rights groups.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has pledged to prioritise the arrest of smuggling gangs, who often receive thousands of dollars from individuals attempting the dangerous sea crossing.

More than 19,000 people have already crossed the Channel from France to the UK by small boat this year, up on the same period last year but down on 2022.

According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), more than 20 people have died trying to cross the border.

A government plan to increase the capacity of deportation centres for people whose applications have been rejected has raised concerns after the chief inspector of prisons warned that conditions in the centres had deteriorated and were unsuitable for vulnerable people.

Carla Denyer, leader of the left-wing minority Green Party, said it was “shocking” to hear that closed detention centres would reopen.

“Labour must end the cruel and widespread use of immigration detention centres and open up safe routes to asylum,” Denyer wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.

The measures, billed as ways to “improve UK border security”, will also punish employers who hire unlicensed workers, and add 100 new detectives to the National Crime Agency to help track people smuggling activities.

The UK government is working with French border control teams and European enforcement agencies such as Europol to track down people smugglers operating across borders and linked to operations in areas such as Turkey and North Africa.