More than 320 organisations have signed an open letter to PM Rishi Sunak condemning the Illegal Migration Bill, the UK Government’s latest #AntiRefugeeBill. The full letter, as well as the list of signatories, is below.
Dear Prime Minister,
We are writing to you now regarding the Illegal Migration Bill. As charities, unions and community organisations that stand with refugees, and people with lived experience of seeking asylum and being refugees, we are horrified by the proposed legislation that shames this Government and marks the UK as running roughshod over human rights.
The need to seek safety is a reality for people fleeing war and persecution across the world. The right to do so, and be treated fairly, is a long-established international principle. Like every country party to the Refugee Convention, the United Kingdom has committed to do its fair share to provide sanctuary and support people to rebuild their lives. This Bill, which proposes we lock up families, children and other refugees simply for asking for protection, fundamentally undermines this principle and makes a mockery of our international commitments.
This cruel and unworkable legislation will be just as damaging as last year’s Nationality and Borders Act. It will cause misery, cost millions to the taxpayer and drive desperate people to take ever more dangerous journeys having been left with no other route to safety. The Government boasts of our proud history of welcoming refugees, but this asylum ban does the exact opposite — it shuts the door on desperate people in need of protection. The glaring racism at the heart of the Government’s hostile refugee policy — which pulls up the ladder on refugees from Africa, the Middle East, and most of Asia including Afghanistan — must be called out.
Hostility and deterrence do not work. Last year’s anti-refugee Nationality and Borders Act proves it. What’s needed is a focus on improving the system. This includes better and faster decision-making to tackle a backlog that leaves people languishing in hotels; it means giving people seeking asylum the right to work; and it means supporting people to live safely and in dignity in our communities in humane housing. If passed, this Bill will cause more chaos to the asylum system by leaving thousands of people trapped in permanent limbo.
The Government must scrap this Bill and uphold its commitment to the Refugee Convention. This means considering people’s claims for asylum based on their merits and not the journey they took to get here, and supporting people to rebuild their lives in our communities.
We urge Ministers to rein in their inflammatory words that all too often echo the language used by racist groups. Dehumanising people in order to target minority and protected groups of people can only draw frightening parallels from history.
As signatories to this letter, we have pledged to defend the right to seek safety from war and persecution in the UK and oppose the long line of anti-refugee laws of which this Bill is the latest. In response to this Bill, we ask the Government to urgently rethink these measures, which do not reflect the proud history of welcome in the UK of which you speak so often.
