The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) UK has again renewed its calls for the government to abandon the “Illegal Migration Bill” in the wake of a new report by the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) stating that the Bill would “deny the vast majority of refugees access to the UK’s asylum system” and “breaches the object and purpose of the Refugee Convention”.
JRS UK highlighted to the JCHR in written evidence that the Bill would ban most refugees from claiming asylum in the UK; hugely expand the use of immigration detention and further reduce its oversight, creating a serious risk of widespread, arbitrary detention; strip modern slavery survivors of protection; and create a fresh risk of long-term destitution for refugees in the UK.
Sarah Teather, JRS UK’s Director, said: “The JCHR’s findings are the latest in an overwhelming catalogue of evidence of the Illegal Migration Bill’s callous cruelty. This Bill would create a refugee ban. It would wreak vast human suffering, and it would serve no good purpose. The Bill must be abandoned in its entirety.”
The JCHR is a cross-party parliamentary committee and an authoritative voice on Human Rights. Their report, “Legislative Scrutiny: Illegal Migration Bill” was published on Sunday by the Joint Committee for Human Rights (JCHR). The JCHR critiques the Bill on multiple other related levels, including expressing extreme concerns about “the expansion of powers of immigration detention under the Bill, and the apparent intention to use detention as a matter of course”.
The JCHR recommends, among other things, removal from the Bill of respective clauses that would render most asylum claims inadmissible to the UK asylum system, and place the secretary of state under a duty to remove those deemed inadmissible. These clauses are at the heart of the Bill.
The Illegal Migration Bill is currently undergoing Committee Stage in the House of Lords, where it may be amended, and will then return to the House of Commons. It is typical for the JCHR’s legislative scrutiny of a Bill to be published at an earlier stage of its progress through parliament, but the Illegal Migration Bill has been moved through parliament with exceptional speed, with ministers attracting criticism for avoiding necessary scrutiny.
