Small boat migrants arriving from TODAY will be detained & deported within 28 days in crackdown, Braverman announces
MIGRANTS who arrive in Britain by small boat from TODAY will be detained and processed for deportation within 28 days.
In a huge clampdown to stop the country "being taken for a ride", illegal migrants will be held by Border Force for the same length as terror suspects.
The move risks a major clash with the European Convention of Human Rights - but Home Secretary Suella Braverman vowed she's up for the fight.
Unveiling the government's new Illegal Migration Bill in the Commons, she praised Brits for being a "famously a fair and patient people".
But she added for too long "their sense of fair play has been tested beyond its limits".
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Ms Braverman pledged: "Anyone entering this country illegally will be detained and swiftly removed.
"No ifs, no buts.
"The law-abiding patriotic majority have said: Enough is enough.
"This cannot and will not continue."
The long-awaited Bill will be applied retrospectively for all small boat arrivals — even though the new law could take months to pass.
It will ensure only under-18s and the genuinely sick will be allowed to apply for asylum in the UK.
All other arrivals will be deported home or to a safe third-country like Rwanda.
And they'll be banned from ever living in the UK.
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While migrants wait for return trips, holiday parks, student digs, military accommodation and even cruise ships will be used to house migrants instead of expensive four and five-star hotels.
The legislation, published after months of delay, openly accepts it risks breaching the Human Rights Act — teeing up a huge fight with Labour and pro-open borders activists and lawyers.
But a new “Strasbourg Brake” will allow specific parts of the Human Rights Act to be “disapplied” when it comes to policing the UK’s borders.
Meanwhile, an annual legal refugee intake cap will be determined by MPs.
It will ensure an "orderly system, considering Local Authority capacity for housing, public services, and support".
The Bill comes as Britain's asylum backlog has ballooned to over 160,000.
Since 2018 a whopping 85,000 migrants have made the dangerous channel crossing.
And over the last two years there's been a 500% increase in small boats.
It costs taxpayers a whopping £3bn each year.
On Friday Rishi Sunak will appeal to Emmanuel Macron that the Bill will help ease pressures on France as well as Britain — with a similar brake possible for European countries struggling with migration.
The PM will tell the French President fixing the Channel crisis means fewer migrants drifting across France on their way to Calais.
Elsewhere in the Bill, the Home Secretary will be handed a legal “duty to remove” anyone arriving in the country without permission.
And it will “radically curtail” arrivals’ ability to claim asylum, allege they have been trafficked or that their Human Rights are at risk of being abused.
It is hoped to speed up deportations to days and weeks rather than months and years.
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Responding to Ms Braverman, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described Britain's asylum system as "deeply damaging chaos".
"There is no point in ministers trying to blame anyone else for it," she said.
"They have been in power for 13 years. The asylum system is broken and they broke it."
The Labour frontbencher derided the Bill as recycled from failed previous legislation.
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"Today's statement is Groundhog Day," she said.
"They still don't have any return agreements in place, the Home Secretary herself has admitted Rwanda is failing, and even if it gets going it'll only take a few hundred people, so what will happen to the other 99% of people under this Bill?"