Illegals Who Piloted Migrant Boats to Britain Have Convictions Overturned

AT SEA, ENGLAND - JULY 22: An inflatable craft carrying migrant men, women and children cr
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Nathaniel Charles

Seven illegal migrants have exploited a British legal loophole and had their people-smuggling convictions quashed, as despite steering boats full of migrants into the UK they are supposedly protected from prosecution under asylum law.

On Tuesday seven male illegal migrants had convictions for facilitating illegal entry into the UK overturned in Britain’s Court of Appeal, with the court ruling that the Home Office and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had misunderstood the law.

Following a ruling in December 2021 where five migrants were exonerated over similar trafficking charges by judges Lord Justice Edis, Mrs Justice May and Sir Nicholas Blake, the courts will now be unable to prosecute illegal migrants for “arrival” into the United Kingdom, ruling that they can only be charged on grounds of “entry”, The Independent reports.

“As the law presently stands, an asylum seeker who merely attempts to arrive at the frontiers of the United Kingdom in order to make a claim is not entering or attempting to enter the country unlawfully”, said Judge Edis.

“Even though an asylum seeker has no valid passport or identity document or prior permission to enter the United Kingdom this does not make his arrival at the port a breach of an immigration law”, Edis continued.

The British Home Office has not acknowledged the court rulings and Home Secretary Priti Patel has continued to refer to the crossings as “illegal“.

The Conservative government’s Nationality and Borders Bill aims to address this loophole by increasing the penalty for “assisting unlawful immigration” to up to fourteen years in prison, and reforming what is classified as “illegal entry” into Britain.

Speaking to Breitbart London Alp Mehmet, the Chairman of immigration watchdog Migration Watch UK, criticised the British court’s decision to overturn the illegal migrants’ charges.

“Whatever the legal niceties in play may be, this decision defies logic and common sense. It simply adds up to an open invitation to would-be migrants to make their way here, bringing others with them, in the knowledge that, in the end, the courts will side with them”, Mehmet said.

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