Under a new proposed laws, immigrants who enter the UK illegally are prohibited from requesting asylum or leaving the nation again.
In an effort to discourage people from using tiny boats to cross the Channel, Home Secretary Suella Braverman announced the modifications.
The Illegal Migration Bill will also establish an annual cap on the number of refugees that the UK will resettle through “safe and legal ways,” with Parliament deciding on the specific number.
It will mean that the home secretary’s “responsibility to remove” takes precedence in law over someone’s claim to asylum. This follows a rule approved in June of last year making it unlawful to arrive on the coast of the UK without permission.
But the efforts have been criticised by refugee groups, who say they are unworkable and will only make the system more costly and chaotic.
The bill will push ‘the boundaries of international law’, Suella Braverman told the Daily Express, but not break it.
Announcing the move in the House of Commons today, she said: ‘The need for reform is obvious and urgent.’
She added: ‘They will not stop coming here until the world knows that if you enter Britain illegally you will be detained and swiftly removed.’
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper suggested there was little difference between the bill introduced today and last year’s bill from Priti Patel which ‘did not work’.
She said: ‘Today’s statement is groundhog day,’ adding: ‘Britain is better than this.’
It is expected to take several months for the law to come into effect even if the process goes smoothly, though the government says it will apply retrospectively once it does.
The topic of tackling small boats and the effects of the new legislation are likely to be top of the agenda at a meeting between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the French president Emmanuel Macron on Friday.
Last year, a total of 45,756 migrants reached Britain via the English Channel, according to Home Office statistics, up from just 280 in 2018.
More than 3,000 people have arrived on UK shores on small boats so far this year.
There were 74,751 asylum applications in 2022, the highest annual number since 84,132 were recorded in 2002.
Ahead of the announcement, director of the European Council on Refugees and Exiles Catherine Woollard told told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: ‘[The proposals] are likely to create considerable suffering, and we suppose that’s part of the intention.
‘But they won’t serve as a deterrent, as people will still try to come to the UK because of where they’re coming from.’
Enver Solomon, head of the Refugee Council, said the plans would ‘add more cost and chaos to the system’.
He added: ‘It’s unworkable, costly and won’t stop the boats.’