Based on new government plans, countries that fail to return their criminal migrants and failed asylum seekers may face sanctions from the UK.
Priti Patel, the head of the Home Office, is reportedly planning to implement a new system that would involve sanctioning foreign countries that refuse to accept criminal migrants and failed asylum seekers from their country.
The move, which will rely on powers established by the Nationality and Borders Act, will be one of the latest attempts to curb illegal immigration at a time when the UK is admitting record numbers of legal migrants, many of whom are from non-EU countries.
According to The Times, Patel’s plan entails creating a “league table” of countries that would rank them from best to worst in terms of how easy it is for Britain to repatriate criminal migrants and failed asylum seekers.
Countries that reportedly end up at the bottom of that table could face sanctions, with the publication listing visa delays, surcharges, or even outright bans as possible penalties for legal migrants coming from the targeted country.
“If countries fall down the list, they will face sanctions,” a government source reportedly told the newspaper, though it should be noted that the table itself will most likely never be made public.
While the UK government continues to be tough on illegal immigration, state authorities in the aftermath of Brexit have dramatically liberalised the country’s immigration rules, allowing even more people from non-EU countries to enter the country.
This has resulted in a record number of non-EU migrants entering Britain in 2021, despite the fact that the issue of regaining control of the country’s borders was central to the Brexit vote in the first place.
While the authority is reportedly planning a second flight to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, it is uncertain if the next flight will not suffer the same fate as the previous one, though officials have reportedly asked the ECHR to reconsider their interim ruling that prevented the previous flight from taking off.