GENEVA-The UN rights chief criticised Wednesday a British draft law that would outlaw asylum claims by anyone arriving in the country illegally, warning it would violate international law.
“I am deeply concerned at this legislation,” Volker Turk said in a statement.
Britain’s Conservative government intends to outlaw asylum claims by all illegal arrivals and transfer them elsewhere, such as Rwanda, in a bid to stop thousands of migrants from crossing the Channel on small boats. Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, joined the chorus of concerns voiced by the UN refugee agency and a string of rights groups. The draft law “would allow the UK authorities to detain and remove all those who enter the UK using small boats to cross the Channel, ban their future re-entry to the UK and prohibit them from applying for UK citizenship”, he said.