The Home Secretary, Priti Patel MP, has today set out the New Plan For Immigration, the biggest overhaul of the UK's asylum system in decades. This plan will set out how the Government will tackle illegal immigration now that we have taken back control of our borders, ended free movement and introduced a new points-based immigration system.
At the heart of our New Plan for Immigration is the principle of fairness. Access to the UK’s asylum system will be based on genuine need of refuge, not on the ability to pay people smugglers. This is predicated on the fact that the current system is collapsing under the pressures of what are in effect illegal routes to asylum, facilitated by criminals smuggling people into the UK and often resulting in the loss of life.
The New Plan for Immigration Plan has three main objectives:
- To increase the fairness and efficacy of our system so that we can better protect and support those in genuine need of refuge.
- To deter illegal entry into the UK, thereby breaking the business model of people smuggling networks and protecting the lives of those they endanger.
- To remove more easily from the UK those with no right to be here.
For the first time, whether people enter the UK legally or illegally will have an impact on how their asylum claim progresses, and on their status in the UK if that claim is successful.
We will make every effort to remove those who enter the UK illegally having travelled through a safe country in which they could and should have claimed asylum. Only where this is not possible, those who have successful claims having entered illegally will receive a new temporary protection status rather than an automatic right to settle and will be regularly reassessed for removal from the UK. People entering illegally will also have limited family reunion rights and limited access to benefits.
For people who have their cases considered, but refused, we will seek their rapid removal from the UK. The appeals and judicial process will also be reformed to speed up that removal process.
The Government will also continue to resettle refugees in need of protection through our already generous refugee routes and we will expand the global reach of our efforts – working with international organisations to provide a safe and legal route to the UK for people fleeing persecution in their home countries, enabling them to start new lives in the UK. This refined approach will also prioritise persecuted minorities and emerging international crises: resettling refugees who are at urgent risk more quickly.
The Home Secretary will also have the ability to provide humanitarian routes to protection to vulnerable individuals in immediate danger and at risk in their home country.
Some of the other measures to be announced include:
- Improved support for refugees to help them build their life in the UK, integrate into our communities and become self-sufficient members of our society.
- Reception centres for asylum seekers so they have simple, safe and secure accommodation to stay in while their claims are being processed.
- Clarifying the standard on what qualifies as a “well-founded fear of persecution” and making it much harder for people to be granted refugee status based on unsubstantiated claims.
- Rigorous age assessment processes with a National Age Assessment Board to stop adult migrants pretending to be children.
- New and expanded ‘one-stop’ process to ensure that asylum, human rights claims and any other protection matters are made and considered together, ahead of any appeal hearing with a new legal advice offer to support individuals in this process.
- Expanding the fixed recoverable costs regime to cover immigration and asylum judicial reviews and widening the scope of Wasted Costs Orders in asylum and immigration matters. Strengthening the law so that we can withhold protection and remove dangerous criminals, even when they improperly claim to be victims of modern slavery.
- Tougher criminal offences for those attempting to enter the UK illegally, introducing life sentences for people smugglers and increasing the penalty for Foreign National Offenders who return to the UK in breach of a deportation order from six months imprisonment to five years.
Please note, there is currently a consultation on this plan. To respond to the consultation, go to: www.gov.uk/government/consultations/new-plan-for-immigration.
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