What is it?
The Illegal Migration Act 2023 is a new piece of legislation passed by parliament and given Royal Assent on July 20, 2023, meaning that it has now become binding legislation in the United Kingdom. The act was an extremely controversial one, initially proposed in March 2023 as a parliamentary bill before facing a herd of opposition from a myriad of parties and individuals in both the House of Commons and House of Lords. Eventually, all of the issues and minor details in the bill were ironed out after a large number of amendments to the bill in a process known as ‘ping ponging’; this is where one of the two Houses of Parliament disagrees with how a bill is worded or laid out and so proposes an amendment, a small change, before being sent back to the other house where this change has to be agreed upon. If the other house does not agree to the change, the bill is sent back to the house which proposed the original change, providing them with the opportunity to propose another change, which the responding house may be more likely to agree to. In the context of this piece of legislation, many saw the actions and avenues proposed by the Illegal Migration Act to be rather extreme, with the opposition hoping for some of the clauses of this bill to be toned down a notch; for example, the bill’s plans to detain pregnant women and children who arrived illegally by small boats were to be limited or perhaps eliminated altogether. The scope of the government’s ability to retrospectively enact this legislation was also reduced. This process, whilst time consuming, results in a final parliamentary bill which both sides are relatively content with becoming legislation. This process was especially prevalent with the new Illegal Migration Act when it was in its bill stage, as the bill governs an extremely politically, socially, morally, and ethically controversial topic: immigration. More specifically, the bill aims to reduce, or in fact eliminate, illegal immigration into the United Kingdom by way of small boats crossing the channel. This comes after ilelgal crossings by small boats into the United Kingdom have surged in recent years, costing the asylum system and UK taxpayers millions—£7 million a day, to be precise—in temporary accommodation alone. The Act aims to achieve this by detaining and then removing those who arrive in the UK by illegal means, mainly small boats, before returning them to their home country and then barring them from returning to the UK.
Initially, the government had also proposed the idea that, if one of these illegal migrants was not able to return to their home country, be it because it was in the midst of a war, humanitarian crisis, or any other extenuating circumstances, then they could be sent to a ‘safe third country’. This ‘safe third country’ proposed by the UK government was Rwanda, with some £140 million having been spent on this Rwanda plan. However, the government soon faced some opposition in the form of legal action from a number of campaign groups as well as a few asylum seekers. Just before the first plane load of asylum seekers was to be flown out to Rwanda, Detention Action and Care4Calais joined four asylum seekers as well as the PCS Union in challenging the Rwanda Plan in the UK’s High Court and requesting an injunction to stop the planned flight. This initial plea was struck out by the High Court on June 10, 2023; however, the passengers soon appealed the decision, and orders were issued to halt the flight. In June 2023, an appeal was then made to the Court of Appeal, whereby the initial High Court ruling was overturned, declaring the plan to be unlawful and in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, for which the UK is a subscribing state. Whilst the Rwanda policy was deemed unlawful, it was not deemed so on the grounds that the plan itself was in breach of the ECHR, but rather that Rwanda was not a ‘safe third country’ and so could not be used for the purposes of the policy. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak then vowed to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, though as of August 2023, no action has been taken.
What does it mean?
In theory, the bill hopes to slash, or even eliminate, illegal immigration into the United Kingdom by way of small boats across the English Channel. This should then minimise the stress faced by the UK asylum system, reducing the size of the already expansive waiting list following the COVID-19 pandemic and reducing the cost to the taxpayer whilst simultaneously freeing up resources for people who have come to the UK legally to seek asylum, such as those facing persecution in Ukraine and other volatile nations.
Why is the Act so controversial?
However, whilst these results do sound enticing, the likelihood of them actually taking place in the real world is hotly debated for a number of reasons, no better conveyed by the fact that, as of April 2022, only 35% supported the plan, with some 42% disagreeing with the plan altogether in a YouGov poll. Firstly, as of December 2022, some 132,182 applicants were awaiting an initial decision on their asylum application, of which 67%, or around 89,000 individuals, had been waiting for 6 months or more. This 132,000 backlog represented a thirteen-time increase in applicants awaiting decisions when compared to 2012, where the figure stood at a mere 9,871, only growing to 27,000 by December of 2018. These 132,182 applications represent 160,919 asylum seekers, as many applications involve families and thus more than one person, meaning that 160,000 individuals need to be housed in the UK, funded by the UK taxpayer. This has resulted in the UK asylum system costing around £3 billion per year, resulting in many individuals being apprehensive about supporting the government as it embarks on another extremely expensive, potentially wasteful project in the way of the Rwanda plan. Secondly, as for the Rwanda policy, on top of the £140 million already having been paid to the Rwandan government, the scheme is thought to cost £169,000 per person, £22,000 in flights to Rwanda, as well as a £105,000 payment to the Rwandan government for every person they take, among other fees. This £169,000 sum is some £63,000 more than it would cost to just house an asylum seeker in the UK at only £106,000. This additional, arguably reckless spending is not something which resonates particularly well with the general British population, especially given the recent cost of living crisis, which has already burdened average British households heavily. Consequently, future tax rises as a result of spending on projects such as the Rwanda plan are not so welcomed, with lots of opposition being posed against the plan by the general population. Critics instead contend that rather than reducing the number of migrants entering the UK by removing them to a ‘safe third country’, we should instead focus on dealing with the already massive backlog within the UK asylum system and reduce spending on the asylum system this way, whilst still providing migrants in need of asylum a route to claim said aid. Thirdly, despite the massive spending which has already taken place as a result of the Rwanda plan, Rwanda has said that it is only able to process 1,000 asylum seekers during the initial trial period. This 1,000 reduction in asylum seeking barely puts a dent in the some 160,000 backlog currently awaiting a decision in the UK, and whilst Rwanda has said that they would have the capacity for more in the future, it is unlikely that this increase in intake will do much to target the true issue at hand and will instead ship it off to another country rather than actually reforming and streamlining the UK asylum system.
Leave a Reply