channel tragedy statement

By Razia, Chief Executive Officer

Enough is enough. There were promises of new safe and legal routes for refugees and asylum seekers last year to placate opposition to the new legislation and yet there are no options for those fleeing persecution to claim asylum safely in the UK.

Following the death yesterday (28 February) of a women - and with two people still missing - we ask: how many need to die before the government announces safe routes?

The current introduction of new legislation is not a solution to these deaths. As recently reported by Asylum Matters, the Joint Committee on Human Rights report finds that the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill is fundamentally incompatible with the UK’s human rights obligations.

The impact of the Illegal Migration Act is that 22,400 people who arrived after 7 March 2023 to seek asylum are in legal limbo; the Government has banned itself from granting asylum to them.

A blog from Free Movement highlights the three new backlogs created by successive pieces of anti-refugee legislation. A new report from IPPR also highlights that tens of thousands of people are stuck in what it refers to as a ‘perma-backlog’. 

The adverse impact of the Nationality and Borders Act (2022) has been analysed by the University of Oxford and Border Criminologies in collaboration with Humans for Rights Network, Captain Support UK and Refugee Legal Support . “No Such Thing As Justice Here”- The Criminalisation of People Arriving to the UK on Small Boats.

We need communities from across the country to come together and stop this political narrative and offer safe and legal routes - and uphold the UK's commitment to human rights.