Thread by @BellRibeiroAddy

The #RefugeeBanBill is a deplorable, illegal & unworkable attempt to rip up the human rights of some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

It comes from a Tory Government desperate to divide & distract us during an economic crisis exacerbated by their policies.

🧵

1/21

Instead of offering safe routes to sanctuary in the UK, the Government is attempting to ban asylum and human rights claims from people who have escaped some of the worst horrors in the world and forcibly remove them instead, with sweeping new detention powers pending this.

2/21

It flies in the face of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, drafted in the wake of the Holocaust: “refugees shall not be penalised solely by reason of unlawful entry or because, being in need of refuge and protection, they remain illegally in a country”.

3/21

The Government has boasted about how this legislation would see modern slavery victims, trafficked to the UK for exploitation, denied refuge and sent back instead to those who trafficked them in the first place #ModernSlavery

4/21

As the @tuc has rightly pointed out, this will push more migrant workers into the exploitation economy with no legal status and no recourse to labour market inspectorates, lowering the floor for all workers in the process.

5/21

This Bill puts a duty on the Home Secretary to remove people to their own country or a “safe third country” if that’s not possible.

Children who arrive via the Channel would be exempt from this - until their 18th birthday, when they must be removed as soon as possible.

6/21

It introduces sweeping new detention powers pending removal, with the Government reportedly looking to repurpose more military sites to warehouse people in the kind of miserable conditions we’ve seen at facilities in Penally, Napier and Manston.

7/21

In practice, efforts to detain and deport people are likely to be constrained by the lack of detention capacity and return agreements with other countries.

That will not stop this Government from trying and bringing many more people to harm.

8/21

Another worrying suggestion is an annual cap, determined by Parliament, on the number of refugees the UK will resettle through safe routes.

We saw during the #WindrushScandal how arbitrary migration targets incentivised the systematic removal of people’s rights.

9/21

The “Illegal Migration Bill” is the latest in a long line of laws & legal measures criminalising migrants.

It won’t work on its stated terms. It will cause misery & cost millions. Its main beneficiaries will be the Tories & outsourcing companies.

10/21
independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-n…

As the damage wrought by thirteen devastating years of right-wing policies becomes clearer & clearer, the Tories sink deeper into their last redoubt: racism & scapegoating.

They want people to blame refugees for collapsing living standards #EnoughIsEnough

11/21

If the Tories can strip away rights and support from the most vulnerable, it will not stop there.

We have to make a moral argument for treating people with dignity, empathy and care.

That starts with #SafeRoutes

12/21

The number of people resorting to dangerous journeys across the Channel and in the Mediterranean reflects the grim reality that most of those fleeing bloodshed and persecution are unable to access the required passports and visas.

13/21

In 2022, 50% of the men, women & children who crossed the Channel in small boats came from Afghanistan, Eritrea, Iran, Sudan, or Syria.

At least 80% of asylum claims from these countries are currently granted.

For Afghanistan, Eritrea & Syria the figure is 98%.

14/21

If the Government was serious about putting people smugglers out of business, it would be opening a visa processing centre in Calais, not yet another new detention centre.

15/21

In a world where 85% of displaced people are hosted by countries in the Global South, there has to be more onus on wealthy countries like Britain to work together to resettle people as quickly as possible and allow people to get on with rebuilding their lives.

16/21

Many European countries that take in more asylum seekers relative to the UK.

The Government should spend less time trying to demonise people for seeking safety & denying them their rights and more time processing claims & integrating people into our communities.

17/21

The Government’s whole concept of levelling up seems to be based on taking things away from one group of people, so they can tell another group that their position is not as bad as they thought.

But it doesn’t have to be this zero-sum game.

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