That would mean intercepting small boats at sea and effectively risking lives of people who are trying to escape conflicts, to return them to a country that they had just passed through. Half of asylum seekers are from the middle East, and once in the hands of people traffickers have no idea of where they have passed through, or their final destination. That is chosen by the traffickers, on the basis of who they know at the other end who can enslave them. These are desperate people who are just trying to survive, not people who prefer UK to France or even Rwanda for that matter.
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No, it wouldn’t - quite the opposite in fact.
I’m talking about setting up a UK asylum screening centre in Northern France. Migrants seeking asylum then gave no need to risk their lives or pay the people traffickers to get them across the water. Initial review of their asylum case is done in France, if it looks like a genuine case then we transport them safely to the UK and complete the asylum screening process. Given that 60-70% of recent claims have been successful we therefore stop 60-70% of the small boat trips.
Claims not successful at first review - claimants are told this and if they subsequently try to cross the Channel then we send them back, because we know who they are, have their fingerprints etc from the initial case.
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There was a former head of border control on the BBC the other day, saying that when he was in post it was 15k making the journey not the estimated 45k today. The reason he suggested, was there is no legal route to claiming asylum in the UK, that all stopped with Brexit. It was him that was suggesting that intercepting people in boats was too dangerous, and as for placing them back in France, he felt that wasn't actually possible.
The BBC also spoke to an asylum seeker originally from Iran, who paid to get out of Iran. He had waited 18 months so far in this country, unable to work as it is illegal for him to do so, waiting to be processed. He paid for his trip, but after leaving Iran had no idea where he had been taken, as all the stop off points were in woodland in the various countries having crossed borders in non obvious locations at night. He ended up here, but had no idea that was the plan, or where he had travelled to in between.
The former border control head seemed to indicate that this particular chap was typical and by no means unrepresentative of how people traffickers work. He had to escape to claim asylum, otherwise he would be working in a captive situation.