British Prime Minister, Rushi Sunak has said his government has introduced the toughest anti-illegal immigration law ever adding that illegal immigration undermines not just United Kingdom border controls but the very fairness that is so central to its national character.
Sunak made a speech on illegal migration on 7 December 2023 while revealed that the initial asylum backlog is down from 92,000 to less than 20,000 and his government have returned over 22,000 illegal migrants.
According to him, “And as our deal with Albania shows – deterrence works. Last year, third of all those arriving in small boats were Albanian. This year we have returned 5,000 people and cut those arrivals by 90 per cent.
“And Albanian arrivals have far more recourse to the courts than anyone under this new legislation. That’s why I’m so confident that this Bill will work. The former Supreme Court Judge, believes this Bill will work. We will get flights off the ground. We will deter illegal migrants from coming here”.
Speaking on the Bill put in place, the Prime Minister said it ends the merry-go-round of legal challenges that have blocked the policy for too long. “We simply cannot have a situation where our ability to control our borders and stop people taking perilous journeys across the channel”.
Sunak pressed further that the Bill gives Parliament the chance to put Rwanda’s safety beyond question in the eyes of this country’s law. “Parliament is sovereign. It should be able to make decisions that cannot be undone in the courts.
“And it was never the intention of international human rights laws to stop a sovereign Parliament removing illegal migrants to a country that is considered safe in both parliamentary statute and international law.
So the Bill does include what are known as “notwithstanding” clauses. These mean that our domestic courts will no longer be able to use any domestic or international law include the Human Rights Act to stop us removing illegal migrants.
Going through the ways individual illegal migrants try and stay, the Prime Minister said claiming asylum is now blocked. “Abuse of our Modern Slavery rules blocked. The idea that Rwanda isn’t safe blocked. The risk of being sent on to some other country – blocked.
“And spurious Human Rights claims – you’d better believe we’ve blocked those because we’re completely disapplying all the relevant sections of the Human Rights Act. And not only have we blocked all these ways illegal migrants will try and stay…
“We’ve also blocked their ability to try and stay by bringing a Judicial Review on any of those grounds. That means that this Bill blocks every single reason that has ever been used to prevent flights to Rwanda from taking off”, he said.
Sunak revealed that the only, extremely narrow exception will be if illegal immigrant can prove with the credible and compelling evidence that he or she specifically have a real and imminent risk of serious and irreversible harm.