Call for refugee visas to tackle Channel small boat crossings

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The UK’s leading refugee charity has called for the introduction of a new refugee visa which it says would help stop dangerous Channel crossings in small boats facilitated by people smugglers.

The National Refugee Strategy, published on Wednesday by the Refugee Council, claims that new legislation just passed into law – the Illegal Migration Act – which bars people who arrive by “irregular means” from claiming asylum and aims to send many to Rwanda to have their claims processed there instead – will not work.

The government has accused the new act’s critics of failing to offer any better ideas. However, the Refugee Council says that its alternative plan – Towards a National Refugee Strategy: Our vision for a fair and humane asylum system – does so.

Its four-point proposal includes piloting a “refugee visa” that would allow people to travel legally to the UK to seek asylum after applying either online or at a visa application centre outside their home country but in the same region.

It recommends a one-year pilot involving 10,000 asylum seekers from five of the top refugee-producing countries – Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Syria and Sudan. Basic identity and security checks would be carried out on applicants and those who pass these checks would get the green light to travel legally to the UK bypassing smugglers and small boats. Once they have arrived here they would go through a shorter and speedier asylum process than is currently on offer. The pilot scheme would be subject to independent evaluation.

Allowing people with family members already in the UK to transfer here from EU member states is also part of the plan, along with allowing people who have been waiting longer than six months for a decision on their asylum claim to work.

The report says that the right to come to the UK and claim asylum should be maintained alongside any new scheme. It states: “The cost and chaos caused by the UK government’s current approach is clear for all to see. The recently passed Illegal Migration Act will only make things worse.”

In 2018, 271 people crossed the Channel in small boats to reach the UK, in 2022 45,746 made the journey. By 9 July, a further 12,560 had travelled to the UK using this method this year.

Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The human cost and chaos of the current system have reached shocking levels and we urgently need a new approach. The proposals we set out would go some way towards making the smugglers redundant: when there are safer alternatives for people to travel to the UK to begin their refugee application, the number of people arriving in boats will drop significantly.”

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A Home Office spokesperson said: “Our Illegal Migration Act is a key part of our work to deter people from making unnecessary journeys to the UK. We are also taking action to ensure all asylum claims are considered without unnecessary delay and remain on track to clear the ‘legacy’ asylum backlog by the end of the year.”