Only 105 Failed Asylum Seekers in Britain Returned to the EU Last Year

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND - JULY 01: Demonstrators join a 'Refugees Lives Matter' protest on July
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Just over one per cent of failed asylum seekers were returned to European Union countries from Britain last year under the bloc’s resettlement scheme, which was still in effect until the first of January.

In the year leading up to the UK’s official departure from the European Union, only 105 of 8,502 attempts were successful in deporting illegal migrants back to the EU. Just 20 failed asylum seekers were returned to France, despite it being a banner year for illegal boat migration coming from the other side of the English Channel.

Conversely, under the EU asylum application regime, the Dublin III Regulation — which the UK was still bound by until the begging of this year — Britain took in nearly nine times as many asylum seekers from Europe, with 882 accepted into the country.

The Home Office said that the disparity explains why many migrants attempt to enter the UK illegally, with a source telling The Times: “It shows that for too long we have gold-plated our asylum system. We’ve gone above and beyond other EU countries. When people harp on about us being a do-little country and accuse us of not doing enough to resettle refugees, it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“It highlights how the system is broken and that’s why we have to bring forward the big package of reforms that we’re drawing up,” the Home Office source added.

The Dublin asylum standards mandate that migrants claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in, meaning that most claims for asylum in Britain would be spurious. However, the rules also provide a family reunification clause, which made up many of the asylum seeker transfer requests from EU countries.

Other provisions within the EU regulation made it difficult to actually enforce, such as the requirement that return applications be made within the first six months of a migrants arrival in the country.

The Home Office pointed to migrants and human rights lawyers launching last-minute asylum claims to “game” the system and extend the process past the six-month limit.

From January 1st, the Dublin agreement has ceased to apply to the UK, allowing the government to pass legislation that prevents migrants caught at sea from applying for asylum once brought ashore in Britain.

Yet, the government has failed to come to a returns agreement with the EU or any individual member state, meaning that the government currently has no mechanism to return migrants to the continent. Since Brexit, zero illegal immigrants have been successfully deported by Priti Patel’s Home Office.

Boris Johnson’s government has also rejected the notion of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits migrants from being sent back to their country if they are deemed likely to face inhumane treatment or torture, even if the migrants are violent criminals, sexual predators, or even terrorists.

The Convention is upheld by the European Court of Human Rights which still has jurisdiction in Britain, despite the departure from the bloc.

The Conservative government’s refusal to adopt a send back the boats approach, successfully enacted in countries like Australia, has seen the record waves of illegal boat migrants continue to flood into the country following Brexit.

So far this year, over 650 illegal aliens have been brought ashore after crossing the English Channel from France, more than double the number recorded during the same time period last year. Another fifty migrants were brought ashore in three small rubber dinghies on Sunday, alone.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka

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