Cross-Channel asylum seekers could be tagged
under Home Office plans
Priti Patel expected to announce introduction of
location tagging as part of immigration system overhaul
Ministers are believed to think that monitoring
people’s movements will prevent them from working illegally.
Andrew
Sparrow Political correspondent
@AndrewSparrow
Thu 23 Dec
2021 12.57 GMT
People who
cross the Channel in small boats to claim asylum could be tagged on arrival
under Home Office plans, it has emerged.
The home
secretary, Priti Patel, is expected to announce the plan early in the new year
as part of her overhaul of the immigration system.
According
to a government source familiar with the proposal, ministers believe that
making working-age people wear tags while their asylum claims are processed
would make it harder for them to work illegally during this period, reducing
the UK’s “pull factor”.
Ministers
also believe tags would stop people absconding during the application process.
The government wants more people whose asylum applications are rejected to be
removed from the country, although absconding is only one factor and there are
significant legal reasons why removal numbers are low, including the UK’s
post-Brexit withdrawal from the Dublin agreements, which enabled people to be
returned to EU countries they had travelled through.
More than
27,000 people have arrived in the UK this year by crossing the Channel on small
boats, up from 8,500 in 2020, and Patel has faced strong criticism,
particularly from within the Conservative party, for not doing more to curb
these numbers.
Under her
“new plan for immigration”, linked to the nationality and borders bill, which
begins its passage through the House of Lords in January, the Home Office wants
to make illegal entry into the UK harder, simplify and speed up the processing
of asylum claims and remove more people whose claims fail.
The plan to
tag people whose claims are being considered, first reported in the Sun, is
likely to be piloted before being rolled out more widely. Sources claim new
legislation is not required because powers to require asylum seekers to wear
tags are already available.
Under the
“new plan for immigration”, the Home Office wants to ensure all asylum seekers
are accommodated in reception centres, instead of hotels, while their claims
are processed. It is understood that tagging would be part of this, with asylum
seekers subject to restrictions on their movements.
One source
argued that making it more difficult to work illegally would protect people
from modern slavery-type exploitation.
In the
autumn, in response to growing concern about the number of people crossing the
Channel on small boats, Boris Johnson asked Steve Barclay, the Cabinet Office
minister, to review whether more could be done across government to address the
issue. The tagging plan may be one of the first outcomes to be announced from
this process.
Last month
the Home Office admitted that only five people crossing the Channel on small
boats had been returned to Europe this year.
On Thursday
the Home Office declined to comment on the tagging plan. It referred
journalists to a comment from Tom Pursglove, an immigration minister, who said:
“The nationality and borders bill will make it a criminal offence to knowingly
arrive in the UK illegally and introduce life sentences for those who
facilitate illegal entry.”
The head of
the Refugee Council, Enver Solomon, said: “Reports today of plans to tag and
curfew people seeking asylum of working age smack of desperation from a
government that doesn’t know how to manage our asylum system in an orderly,
effective and, most importantly, humane way.
“Treating
innocent men, women and young adults who have fled war and persecution like
criminals is cruel, draconian and punitive that sets a new and unprecedented
low in the UK’s approach to responding to people in desperate need. It won’t
act as a deterrent nor stop people making dangerous journeys across the
Channel. Instead the government needs to create more safe routes for people and
ensure everybody who reaches our shores is treated with humanity and given a
fair hearing on UK soil.”
Minnie
Rahman, the interim chief executive of the Joint Council for the Welfare of
Immigrants, said: “The government seems bent on pursuing ever more desperate
and draconian measures like electronic tags, which are disproportionate and
aimed at solving a problem that simply does not exist.
“The
government continues to ignore the evidence, and would rather turn their backs
on the vulnerable people we should be protecting. Instead we need a faster and
more efficient asylum system that provides people with safe routes to the UK,
and which allows refugees to rebuild their lives as part of our communities.”
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