UK: 'securitised' immigration measures will punish vulnerable people

Responding to a Government announcement on new immigration and border security measures, Steve Valdez-Symonds, Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme Director at Amnesty International UK, said:

“It’s dismaying to see the new Government reheating the last Government’s rhetoric over ‘border security’ and ‘smashing gangs’ even while neglecting the pressing need to provide safe asylum routes and a clear guarantee of asylum to refugees arriving here.

“People in urgent need - including those fleeing war and persecution in places like Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran - will keep coming to the UK and other countries, and the Government needs to establish safe routes that reduce the perils of dangerous border crossings and the risk of exploitation by ruthless smuggling gangs.

“This ‘securitised’ approach to asylum and immigration will simply deter and punish many of the people most in need of crossing borders, people who are therefore often most vulnerable to criminal exploitation.

"Increasing immigration powers - including to detain people - rather than making sure existing powers are only used where that is necessary and fair has for decades rewarded Home Office inefficiency and injustice.

“A new set of ministers promoting an age-old message of fear and hostility regarding some of the most victimised and traumatised people who may ever arrive in the UK, means that smuggling gangs and racist and Islamophobic hate-mongers at home are likely to feed off this to everyone’s detriment.”