As more and more boats crossed the English Channel, which eventually turned into a tragedy on Wednesday, activists and experts proposed many possible solutions to curb the dangerous journey:
Accept refugee’s request seriously
The government is accused of misunderstanding the reasons behind the current crisis. Home Secretary Priti Patel claim 70% of people crossing the border by boat are economic migrants dispute In the new study by the Refugee Committee. Undocumented economic migrants usually do not hand themselves over to officials of the Home Office immediately upon arrival in British territory.
recent High Court cases Regarding the maintenance payments paid to the hotel asylum seekers, Patel The Minister of Immigration at the time, Chris Philp, rejected the official’s suggestion to pay 12.11 pounds to hotel asylum seekers to meet basic living needs a week because they “do not want to further increase any possible pull factors”. Asylum seekers insist that they did not travel to the UK to get these modest remunerations.
Critics say that if the nature of the problem is misunderstood, it is difficult to find a solution.
Cooperate with other peaceful countries to try to resolve or alleviate global conflicts
The gold standard solution to prevent refugees from crossing the strait in small boats is to end the global conflict that caused people to flee for their lives. The UK Department for International Development (DfID) did a lot of work on this before it was abolished as an independent department and merged with the Department of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs in 2020. DfID is committed to strengthening the infrastructure of fragile countries, hoping to increase stability there. In terms of global diplomacy, the European Union also has a huge collective influence, but the United Kingdom is no longer a member.
Enable safe, legal routes and resettlement of refugees
Refugee resettlement is a safe way to airlift people out of conflict zones or neighboring countries and allow them to start a new life without having to deal with many obstacles in the current asylum system. However, refugee resettlement is only provided to a very small number of people fleeing the conflict. Despite the promise to provide safer routes, the number of people resettled under the British government’s resettlement plan was 1,171 in the 12 months to September 2021, a decrease of about 45% year-on-year. Operation pitting 15,000 people were airlifted from Afghanistan this year, and after the Syrian conflict, the British government resettled about 5,000 Syrians each year. Refugee charities are calling for expansion of these programs.
Apply for a British humanitarian visa on French soil
British officials are already working at the border FranceThe charity stated that asylum seekers in northern France who wish to arrive in the UK to apply for asylum should be able to register their application with British officials and then be arranged to take a ferry to the UK during the processing of their application. If such a plan is adopted, it will achieve what the government has repeatedly promised to do: crush the business model of human smugglers.
Reform the asylum system
Delays in processing asylum applications have reached record levels, and the number of people who have waited six months or more to make a preliminary decision on their applications has increased by 5% to 56,520. Previously, the goal of the Ministry of the Interior was to process most direct claims within six months.It dropped Target In 2019, officials hope to focus on prioritizing the most vulnerable asylum seekers. According to data released by the Ministry of the Interior on Thursday, most asylum applications are considered legal. Nearly two-thirds (64%) of asylum applications ended in protection. Of those who were rejected and then proceeded to appeal, 48% were successfully overturned. The scale of the delay causes the system to feel overwhelmed; experts say this is not necessarily the case.
