Any migrants who have come through 'safe' states such as France, Italy, Spain and Germany will be removed back to those countries
Credit: Steve Finn
Border Force officers are to get new Australian-style “turn-back” powers to stop and redirect boats carrying illegal migrants across the Channel.
Their new powers will be enshrined in Home Secretary Priti Patel’s new sovereign borders bill enabling them to turn back vessels wherever they suspect they are carrying illegal migrants.
It mirrors similar “turn-back” tactics in the Australian Government’s Sovereign Borders campaign in 2013 where it redirected boats to Indonesia or Sri Lanka.
Border Force and the Navy have trialled technologies to turn back migrants including nets to disable propellers but the Home Office has yet to secure an agreement with the French to take them back amid disagreements over the safety risks of the approach.
A Government source said: “All options are on the table. The Government is determined to do whatever it takes to stop these crossings which are dangerous, illegal and unnecessary because France is a safe country.”
The moves came as 183 migrants were intercepted trying to reach the UK across the Channel on Tuesday – a record number for a single day so far for 2021. A further 30 arrived on Wednesday which means 1,056 have so far reached the UK this year, three times last year’s rate at the same point.
Asylum stats
Smuggling crackdown
Fines for lorry drivers caught with migrants in their vehicles will more than double from £2,000 to at least £5,000 per person found. Drivers who fail to secure their lorries will face similar fines and could lose their accreditation to work for persistent breaches.
Border Force officers will also get powers to search unaccompanied containers within ports and seize and donate to charity any seaworthy vessels used by smugglers.
People smugglers face life jail sentences – up from 14 years – illegal migrants face longer sentences and deported criminals who sneak back into the UK will be increased from six months to five years.
Checks on child migrants
Home Office officials will use ultrasound scanners to establish the age of child migrants’ bones to check they are under 18 and not adults posing as children to claim asylum.
It follows Home Office research which found up to 54 per cent of migrants claiming to be children were over 18. The most high-profile case was the Parson’s Green bomber Ahmed Hassan who pretended to be 16 and posed as a “model asylum seeker” before the terror attack injuring 69.
A new age assessment board will use the latest scientific techniques including DNA analysis to check the ages of the 3,000 unaccompanied children who currently enter the UK each year.
Ministers are also considering reducing from 25 to 18 the age which officials use as the benchmark for deciding whether someone looks like a child or an adult and should be treated as such.
Streamlining asylum
Asylum-seekers will only have one go to present their case ahead of an appeal to prevent lawyers dragging it out with fresh claims. Lawyers will also face court-imposed financial penalties for pursuing “meritless” claims.
Definitions of “well-founded fear of persecution” will be tightened to prevent “unsubstantiated” claims for refugee status. Claimants also face a “good faith requirement” to bring their cases as soon as possible, tell the truth and leave the UK when they have no right to remain.
Hotels will no longer be used to accommodate asylum seekers and will be replaced by Government reception centres. Ministers will amend legislation to make it possible to move asylum seekers from the UK so they can, if required in the future, be processed offshore.
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The Government will also reduce criminality threshold so that those who have been convicted and sentenced to at least 12 months’ jail, rather than two years, can have their refugee status revoked.
Removal of illegal migrants
Asylum seekers deemed to have arrived in the UK illegally will no longer have the same entitlements as those who arrive in the country via legal routes.
Even if their claim is successful, they will only be granted temporary refugee status which means they will be regularly reassessed for removal from the UK, have limited family reunion rights and no access to benefits unless destitute.
Only those who come to the UK through legitimate routes – via official government refugee schemes from warzones or to escape persecution – will be entitled to indefinite leave to remain.
Any migrants who have come through “safe” states such as France, Italy, Spain and Germany will be removed back to those “safe” countries.
Ministers have yet to agree bilateral deals with any EU countries to accept back migrants who travelled through them. In the absence of any deals, none have been sent back since Brexit when the previous EU-wide Dublin agreement with the UK to accept returns lapsed.
Ms Patel said on Wednesday that the EU had a “moral duty” to be “part of the solution”. She denied the two-tier system was “inhumane,” saying the changes were necessary to deal with the “terrible trade” of people smuggling and to fix the “broken” asylum system.
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