Home secretaries from both main parties have scapegoated asylum seekers in attempts to endear themselves to voters in recent decades. But none with the fervour of Priti Patel, who in her two-year tenure at the Home Office has announced a series of initiatives to put people off seeking asylum in the UK. Wave machines in the Channel, flying asylum seekers to inhospitable islands thousands of miles away to be processed, criminalising those who rescue people drowning at sea: all are recent measures proposed by the home secretary regardless of their compatibility with international law and Britain’s moral obligations.
Patel gives the impression that there is an escalating crisis in terms of the numbers of people arriving in the UK and trying to illegitimately claim refuge. This is not true. There is absolutely a crisis for asylum seekers trying to reach British shores by making the treacherous Channel crossing in small boats and dinghies. The British government should be doing all it can to clamp down on the people traffickers making a fortune by charging desperate people to attempt the crossing. But the number of people coming to the UK to claim asylum fell by 4% last year and stands at less than half what it was in the early 2000s. Britain receives a fraction of the asylum applications of Germany and France and fewer per resident than the EU average. Low-income countries host nine out of 10 displaced people worldwide.
Continue reading…This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.