UK authorities on hot seat over "scapecoating" English Channel-crossing migrants

The British government has been widely criticized over its controversial asylum policies to tackle the mounting number of English Channel crossings by migrants in small boats, with some accusing it of “scapegoating” migrants for the country’s “broken immigration policy.”

The increasing number of Channel crossings, a heated issue in the UK, is mainly rooted in Brexit, as well as global developments such as increasing conflict, violence and human rights abuses worldwide, reports Anadolu.

Before Brexit, the UK was part of the European Union’s Dublin Regulation, which allowed it to return some asylum seekers to EU member states without considering their asylum claims.

When the UK left the EU in 2020, it became a country that had to make new return arrangements with any EU member state.

The UK’s new policies on asylum seekers, or the “immigration problem,” came under the spotlight mainly after it announced its Rwanda asylum plan in April last year, formally known as the UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership.

Under then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, people who were identified by the UK as being illegal immigrants or asylum seekers would be relocated to Rwanda, which the government claimed was a “fundamentally safe and secure country,” for processing, asylum, and resettlement.

The plan has been vehemently criticized by many NGOs and international organizations, including UN institutions, as well as politicians.

One of the points was that while the number of asylum applications in the UK hit a 20-year high of nearly 75,000 in 2022, it was still well below the EU average, as Germany received more than 240,000 asylum claims last year.

Following controversies, court decisions and criticism, 2023 began with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak identifying the issue as one of his five priorities in a January speech, after a record number of more than 45,000 people crossed the English Channel in small boats in 2022, up more than 60% from the previous year.