They are mostly desperate, destitute, often stateless men, women, and children fleeing from war, torture, oppression, and persecution.
Nobody risks their lives across the treacherous waters of the English Channel in unsuitable and unsafe boats unless they are deeply distressed and determined, with nothing left to lose.
Just a few want to get to the UK. Really, by comparison to the 110 million forcibly displaced people in the world, it’s a tiny number.
But the few who tenaciously want to make it to our shores against all odds often have compelling reasons.
Speaking English, having family already here, colonial links; all high on the list.
They take the dangerous “irregular route” because there’s NO safe route available. And under current rules, the ONLY way to claim asylum in the UK is to be IN the UK.
Mr Sunak says under his plan – the same plan as ALL Tory Prime Ministers since Brexit – they will be immediately sent back to their home country “if it is safe to do so” or, if not, deported to a “third country” such as Rwanda.
Isn’t there a BIG clue in Mr Sunak’s words?
The MAJORITY of those arriving here in flimsy boats can’t be sent back to their “home country” because their home country isn’t safe.
That’s why they had to escape their UNSAFE country to find a new home.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees strongly opposes Britain’s plan for sending people to Rwanda on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe country.
But hey, if the Rwanda Bill is now passed, it will be deemed a safe country, by law, no matter the facts.
And once passed, anyone arriving here by that so-called “irregular route” will automatically forfeit ALL rights to claim asylum in the UK, FOREVER, or to make any legal appeals against that decision.
Instead, they will be immediately locked up in detention centres (call them prisons).
Then, as fast as possible, they will be flown out to Rwanda at huge expense (clue: because in most cases, it won’t be safe to send them back to their home country).
Any human rights claims will ONLY be heard AFTER the asylum seeker has been kicked out.
The irony.
Rather than desperate refugees being “illegal,” it’s Britain that’s acting illegally.
What the government plans to do will almost certainly breach international human rights legislation, and it will certainly be in breach of humanity.
And to think, once-upon-a-time, it was illegal Britons who travelled to other countries in boats, not to claim asylum or to befriend the locals, but to plunder those lands of their riches and to create the world’s biggest empire.
But that’s another story. Or is it?
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