It’s 2024. Exhausted, traumatised, aching and lonely, you’ve just arrived in the UK hoping to claim asylum.
What happens now? 1/thread
What happens now? 1/thread
Let’s say you lived in a country where people are imprisoned, or even lynched, for being gay. Let’s say you ran a little bar where LGBT+ people like you can meet, discreetly of course. You passed on some of the profits to the local police so they turned a blind eye. 2/
Until one day they didn’t. The police turned up in force, dragged you out of the bar and beat you senseless in front of your neighbours.
When you woke up you were shackled in a stinking, overcrowded cell in the city’s main prison. 3/
When you woke up you were shackled in a stinking, overcrowded cell in the city’s main prison. 3/
We won’t dwell on the agonies of the next few weeks.
What we’re concerned with is how you escaped and made it to the UK. 4/
What we’re concerned with is how you escaped and made it to the UK. 4/
One day a guard took you from the cell & said your family sold your bar to cover large bribes for the guards on duty, a passport in a false name & a clandestine journey with an “agent” (people-smuggler). You managed to gasp out: can it be to the UK as your aunt lives there? 5/
A day or so later you crossed the border by bus, then took a plane to somewhere in Europe. There you were kept a few days in a safe house, all the while under strict instructions from the agent to do exactly as they say at all times if you don’t want to be sent back home 6/
After all the torture you can barely think straight, but you’re relieved to hear the end destination is the UK after all, since you’re desperate for a friendly face and also you know it’s a country which respects human rights. 7/
At the airport in the UK, the agent tells you to stick by him & he’ll explain you’re both just tourists. Somehow this works and they let you through. The agent takes you to London by train. While you’re in the station wondering what happens next, you realise he’s disappeared 8/
You have no choice but to approach a police officer, who takes you to the police station and calls the Home Office. It’s a relief that at least you’re in a safe country, though.
At this point things start to unravel. 9/
At this point things start to unravel. 9/
You tell the Home Office you want to claim asylum. Instead you’re taken to a detention centre. You’re told they can keep you there for 28 days before you can apply for bail. They tell you with a laugh you can apply for habeas corpus instead. You have no idea what this means. 10/
The next day you’re interviewed. You repeat that you want to claim asylum. You’re told you can’t, because you arrived illegally. Dumbfounded, you try to point out why you couldn’t flee under your own identity or wait for a visa, but they’re not interested. 11/
You’re told the UK government has just announced a plan to send asylum seekers to a particular third country, & you’re on the list to go there. It’s a state not far from yours, maybe not as homophobic as yours, but hardly a beacon of human rights. You struggle to process this 12/
You manage to blurt out that someone in the detention centre told you the UK does this sort of thing to people arriving on small boats, but you’re told no, it applies to anyone arriving illegally, which includes you, with your false passport & the lies you told on arrival 13/
You’re told you can never claim asylum in the UK. Not only that, but you won’t be allowed to return to the UK ever in your life, even if you did get asylum in the country you’re being sent to. 14/
The only option is to provide compelling evidence that you’d face a real risk of serious & irreversible harm in the third country. You have 8 days.
You understand the individual words, but together they make no sense. Your body aches all over & your head’s about to explode 15/
You understand the individual words, but together they make no sense. Your body aches all over & your head’s about to explode 15/
Eventually your aunt locates you & puts you in contact with a lawyer. The lawyer tells you she’s sorry, but this is now the law, and it doesn’t matter if you’re a torture victim, or if you had reasons for travelling as you did, or if you imagined this was a democratic country 16/
She says you can appeal the decision, but the Home Office will probably certify the appeal as unfounded, so you could only really appeal with compelling evidence of a risk of serious & irreversible harm in the third country. Which you don’t have. And don’t have time to get 17/
You do appeal, but it fails because your evidence isn’t compelling enough, or the risk wasn’t serious enough. Or something. You’re told there are no further appeal rights, & no, whatever you heard about the European Court of Human Rights, the UK won’t let it stop your removal 18/
It’s all a blur. No-one helps you with the horrors your mind produces every time you imagine being sent home.
Less than a month after you got to the UK thinking you were safe, you’re on a plane to another country with dozens of other despairing, terrified people.
Good luck 19/
Less than a month after you got to the UK thinking you were safe, you’re on a plane to another country with dozens of other despairing, terrified people.
Good luck 19/
This ofc is the plan the government has for asylum seekers under its #IllegalBill, or an approximation of it, since we don’t yet have all the details. The aim is to prevent people who arrive unauthorised from ever claiming asylum, with minimal interference from the courts 20/
In fact the whole business with the limited right of appeal on grounds of “compelling evidence” seems designed to ensure that the govt can suddenly spring new arrangements on us, as with Rwanda, but avoid the intervention from Europe & the lengthy court battle which ensued 21/
But wait, let’s go back to 12, because there’s a Sliding Doors moment there. What if the UK government hasn’t managed to reach an agreement with a third country where you can be sent? In that case surely they’ll let you claim asylum here instead? 22/
Well, no, I’m afraid not. Once you meet the definition of having arrived “illegally” (with an exception only if you travelled directly, with no stops, from a country where you’re at risk), the Home Secretary is literally prohibited from ever letting you claim asylum 23/
But what if the UK never reaches any third-country agreements? You can’t be sent back to where you fled, since no-one will ever look at your asylum claim. You’re legally prevented from ever getting regular status here (with only an unclear get-out for human rights grounds) 24/
A future stretches out endlessly in which you can’t escape a permanent threat of removal, & can never settle, work or really recover from your past. Living in hotels paid for by the Home Office while politicians call you a drain on taxpayers & fascists demonstrate outside 25/
All this because the Tories think their electoral advantage, & enforcing their immigration law, matter more than international co-operation or treating people with even minimal dignity & kindness.
I said last year that Rwanda was the fight of our lives. I was wrong. 26/
I said last year that Rwanda was the fight of our lives. I was wrong. 26/
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