New UK asylum bill would be in ‘clear breach’ of international law: UNHCR
If adopted, the new bill would deny the right to seek refugee protection to people arriving irregularly in the UK, such as those risking their lives to cross the English Channel in small boats.
Instead, these asylum-seekers would face detention and deportation, without having their individual circumstances examined.
“This would be a clear breach of the Refugee Convention and would undermine a longstanding, humanitarian tradition of which the British people are rightly proud,” UNHCR said.
The UK is one of the original signatories of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which recognizes that refugees may have to enter a country of asylum
