POST-BREXIT, UK is no longer part of the EU’s Dublin Convention, to ensure member states shoulder a fair responsibility of taking in asylum seekers


The government is setting out its plans to change the way people applying for asylum in the UK are dealt with.
For the first time, people seeking protection as refugees would have their claim assessed based on how they arrive in the UK.
Home Secretary Priti Patel says the new system will be “fairer” and will crack down on criminal gangs.
Campaigners say the proposals would create an unfair system and would not address people smuggling.
Under the plans, people who arrive in the UK by what the government call illegal means to claim asylum will no longer have the same entitlements as those who arrive through proper channels.


There were 35,099 asylum claims made in the UK during the year ending March 2020, with Iran, Albania and Iraq providing the most applicants.
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Home Secretary Priti Patel told Radio 4’s Today programme the asylum system is “broken” and the extent of illegal immigration to the UK is “putting lives at risk and fuelling criminality”.


She said the new measures will create “safe and legal routes” to give people a chance to resettle.
She said the system is currently “clogged up” with bogus claims and repeated legal wrangles over removing people who should not be in the country.


“We want to have end-to-end reform to make sure our system is functional,” she added.
She said the new system would give asylum to people genuinely fleeing persecution, such as women, children and families stranded “in squalid camps in dreadful parts of the world”.


“What is inhumane,” she said, “is allowing people to be smuggled through illegal migration” because “people are being found dead in the back of lorries and drowning in the channel”.
Ms Patel said people should be claiming asylum in the EU country they first arrive in, rather than using it as a springboard to get to the UK and “it is imperative that other countries step up” and prevent this from happening.
“These are not war zones. They are safe countries. It is important to emphasise that,” she added.
But Labour said the plans would do “next to nothing” to stop criminal gangs, while refugee groups called the proposals “unjust” and “unreal”.
More details are due to be set out later on the New Plan for Immigration, described by the government as “the biggest overhaul of the UK’s asylum system in decades”. Analysis box by Dominic Casciani, home and legal correspondentLast year, almost 30,000 people sought asylum in the UK – and more than 8,000 of them crossed the English Channel in small boats, with the help of people smugglers.
The Home Office says the system is “collapsing” under the weight of illegal entries – but the current rate of arrivals to the UK is a third of the all-time record and well below the numbers in some European Union neighbours.
At the same time, the backlogs of people waiting for a decision on their application had risen to eight times higher than a decade ago, even before the pandemic made matters worse.
It’s those figures that lead critics to say the real problem is years of mismanagement.
If the UK wants to send some asylum seekers back to other countries, it can only do so with their agreement.
While flights regularly take people back to some parts of the world, the government no longer has a deal with the EU.
As part of Brexit, it chose to leave the continent-wide scheme that made returns to France and elsewhere possible. It’s not clear if and when it will reach a new agreement with Brussels. Responding to Ms Patel’s pledges, Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon accused the government of “seeking to unjustly differentiate between the deserving and undeserving refugee” by giving protection “based on how they travel to the UK”.
British Red Cross chief executive Mike Adamson said: “The proposals effectively create an unfair two-tiered system, whereby someone’s case and the support they receive is judged on how they entered the country and not on their need for protection. This is inhumane.”
Labour’s shadow home secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the plans would do “next to nothing frankly to speed up the process, to stop criminal gangs, to reduce the chances of people undertaking dangerous crossings and may even withdraw support from desperate people”.
“Whether someone has a valid asylum claim isn’t dependant on the route that they took,” he added.
But he promised to “study the detail of whatever the government puts forward” in its full review. What do the new proposals promise?The Home Office said that “for the first time” the question of whether asylum seekers enter the UK via another “safe” country, such as France would “have an impact” on how it dealt with claims.
The government would seek the “rapid removal from the UK” of rejected applicants, with appeals “reformed to speed up” the process, it added.
But asylum seekers fleeing persecution or violence and coming to the UK via the “legal resettlement” route from countries such as Syria and Iran would straight away get permission to remain in the UK indefinitely, the Home Office said.
Under the new plans, anyone who pays criminal gangs to bring them to the UK would only ever receive temporary permission to remain and would be regularly assessed for removal from the UK.
Other proposals include bringing in “rigorous” age checks to stop adults entering the country by pretending to be children.
Ms Patel said asylum applicants with criminal records who returned to the UK after being deported would receive a jail sentence of up to five years. The current maximum is six months.
And people smugglers – responsible for shipping many of the 8,500 people who crossed the English Channel in small boats last year – could get life sentences, she warned. What happens when someone wants to claim asylum in the UK?To be eligible, the person must have left their country or be unable to return because of fear of persecutionChildren are also allowed to apply on their own if they do not have family members or carers with themAfter applying for asylum, people have a meeting with an immigration officer, known as a screening
If the government discovers any of the information on the claim is false, the person applying can get up to two years in prison or be forced to leave the UKAfter the screening, the Home Office decides if the claim for asylum can be considered
If the department deems the application to not be eligible, the asylum seeker can either be returned to their country or to a “safe country” – either one they have travelled through to get to the UK or one they have a connection with already
Post-Brexit, the UK is no longer part of the EU’s Dublin Convention, which aims to ensure member states shoulder a fair responsibility of taking in asylum seekers
The UK no longer has a deal with the bloc to return those who travelled through the EU to reach the UK
If the application is approved, people or families are given permission to stay in the UK for five years – known as “leave to remain” – and after that runs out, they can apply to settle in the UKIf is it not approved, asylum seekers will be told to leave the UK – although there is an option to appeal – and if they fail to leave, they can be detained and removed. BBC

Photo- Home Secretary Priti Patel

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