Migrants to Apply For UK Asylum In France
Allowing Migrants to Apply For UK Asylum in France. A think Tank proposed that Britain could reduce the number of people making perilous journeys across the Channel
New centres established outside Calais may enable the people to apply for asylum in the UK or allow them to join their families in Britain. The maximum number of asylum seekers who will be accorded a sanctuary in the UK would be on a rolling monthly cap, according to a new report by the Future Governance Forum (FGF) think tank, and in return, France would take back migrants who have arrived on UK shores in small boats equivalent in numbers.
The proposals reflect the policies implemented by the Biden administration in the US, which enabled people at the southern border to have access to pre-arrival processing. Offices of counselling were established in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador to enable migrants to apply for resettlement in the US through the legal route by seeking refugee status.
The programme wanted to reduce the number of people taking the risky crossing at the US-Mexico border.
The UK is already talking to France about a plan to repatriate migrants who cross the Channel into small boats. In exchange, the UK government has purportedly proposed to accept migrants who want to rejoin their families living in Britain.
The French interior ministry said in April that the pilot scheme would be based on a “one-for-one principle”. This would be the case such that “There would be for each legal admission under family reunification, a corresponding readmission of undocumented migrants who managed to cross [the Channel]”.
Beth Gardiner-Smith, writer of the report from the progressive think tank FGF, said: The establishment of new ‘asylum management centres’ in France would help the government restore control to the UK’s out-of-control asylum system and slash the current increase in people trying to reach the UK across dangerous Channel crossings in small boats.
“Asylum management centres and with a future readmissions agreement in the background, would give a realistic deterrent and incentive to prevent people from getting into boats.”
Refugees would be likely to hold off crossing the Channel if they can receive a decision on an asylum claim while in France, the report said. They argue: ‘Full processing of asylum claim enables the UK to only accept those with a valid asylum claim, thereby avoiding the difficulty of returning those who come in minus a valid claim, many of whom cannot be returned since we have no returns arrangement or the country of origin is unsafe’.
Release of the report precedes the UK-EU reset summit on Monday, which will see ministers lay their hands on a joint pact on security.
Migration and youth mobility are also going to be discussed (as the European Council said).
Home secretary Yvette Cooper said the UK government have succeeded in making France change their rules to allow the police to prevent migrants from stepping on boats from the water.
Ms Cooper said smugglers have been rescuing migrants at sea instead of at the beach, because at present, French police don’t act after migrants get into the water.
Speaking yesterday, the home secretary said that French ministers have now agreed to a change to the rules, which will come into action ‘over the next few months’.
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