PRITI Patel today revealed ministers will introduce life sentences for sick people-smugglers who exploit desperate migrants to get them to the UK.
The Home Secretary has revealed her tough new immigration plans to MPs this afternoon- with an asylum shake-up to stop people risking their lives crossing the Channel to get into the country.
She vowed to tackle illegal migration “head on” with a fresh approach to crackdown on the routes that people try to use, and punish those who help them insisting: “while people are dying, we have a responsibility to act”.
She said her reforms were the biggest shake-up in decades, and they would stop people “dying at sea, in lorries, and in shipping containers, having put their lives in the hands of criminal gangs.”
Ms Patel said she would bring forward “new maximum life sentences for people smugglers and facilitators” and “new rules to stop unscrupulous people posing as children” too.
And she took aim at the current system which is being clogged up with last minute “meritless claims” to try and get people to stay in the country.
Under her reforms would mean only people with genuine rights to be here would be able to stay – and wouldn’t be able to access benefits or be reunited with their families.
Many put in last minute claims are launched by lawyers – but eight in ten are then thrown out.
Last year, roughly 8,500 people arrived in Britain having made the perilous crossing of the Channel in small boats, but several died while attempting the journey.
“Enough is enough,” she vowed.
It takes too much time for claims to go through the system too, she insisted, vowing to speed it up.
Some 52,000 are awaiting an initial decision and three quarters are awaiting a year or more, she told MPs.
Her crackdown involves:
- New life sentences for people smugglers trying to get migrants into the country
- New legal routes for people to come to the UK
- People coming via illegal routes could be picked up within 24 hours and taken to an overseas territory
- More powers for Border Force to crack down and take tougher action when required
- A possible £2000 fine for drivers who don’t lock their boots when crossing the Channel as part of plans to ensure no one can sneak into the UK
- The maximum time an asylum seeker can stay in the UK having entered illegally will be 30 months – before they’re reassessed
- More stringent age assessment tests will also take place “to stop adult migrants pretending to be children”
She said today: “No more stalling justice. Our new system will be faster and fairer and support the most vulnerable.”
She revealed that since 2015 Britain has resettled almost 25,000, men, women and children seeking refuge from persecution across the world.
And ministers are allowing more than five million Hong Kong-ers to come to the UK as part of citizenship plans.
Ms Patel said this afternoon: “Nobody can say that the British public are not fair or generous when it comes to helping those in need.”
If people arrive illegally, they will no longer have the same entitlements as those who arrive legally, and it will be harder for them to stay,” she said.
And “asylum shoppers” will be blocked from travelling through safe countries to settle in their preferred destination of the UK.
The Home Sec told MPs: “If, like over 60 percent of illegal arrivals, they have travelled through a safe country like France to get here, they will not have immediate entry into the asylum system — which is what happens today.”
The Home Office is also looking into setting up an independent age assessment body which will make decisions on asylum seekers who claim to be under age.
Anyone who appears to be a minor at the moment is treated as one until their age can be verified.
At the moment the limit is if someone looks over 25, but this will be lowered down to 18.
Last year Home Office analysis showed that more than half of asylum seekers who pretended to be kids were actually adults.
The Home Sec revealed her plans to HOAR yesterday.
Taking aim at immoral lawyers and lefty armchair critics, the Home Secretary declared “no one can defend the current system” as she launches the biggest reforms in a generation to Britain’s “broken” asylum process.
People smugglers face full life sentences and immigration legal firms face their entire business being upended for helping to “support criminality” and luring people to Britain under false hope.
Priti told HOAR “the status quo is not an option anymore” as she warned her “mission” will take years to complete.
Throwing down the gauntlet to the PM amid suggestions she could be reshuffled out of her job, she says: “I’m here to get on and do this job” but stressed it would be “hard, hard graft.”
“This will take time and I’ll be very honest with the British people about this there’s no one quick fix, this is not a short term, this is for the long term.”
Speaking from her Whitehall office, she warned that the aim of the reforms was to stop young economic male migrants “elbowing their way” to the front of the immigration queue.
Migrants dumped onto British beaches by people smugglers face being immediately deported to facilities outside the EU where they will have their claims processed – dubbed ‘boomeranging’ by Ms Patel’s Home Office team.
And in a bid to crack down on “asylum shoppers” coming from Europe, migrants will only be handed a temporary immigration status, rather than a full right to settle.
They will also face greater hurdles meeting up with family in the UK and accessing benefits and will be house in special “reception centres” rather than hotels and houses.
Priti said: “We will make sure that they are supported with English language, training and education, along with accommodation but also giving them the support that they need within the community to make a success of their new life in the United Kingdom.”
And for law firms who have thrived on hopeless immigration appeals,she said it “is simply not right that they are preventing us from removing murderers and rapists, some of the most awful individuals that have participated in terrible criminality in the United Kingdom.
“So this will lead to a fundamental change.”
