Probably. But why, when they have come DIRECTLY from France, do they have to be assessed in the UK? Should they have been assessed in France (or the "free" countries they came through)?
They crossed the channel on a boat to claim asylum that they should have claimed before climbing in the rubber boat, fuck them straight back. They can bleat to their lawyers about ECHR in the first country they came to.
This is a pretty widespread misconception, which probably is so widespread because it used to be the rule. (But more on that later!) With apologies to Colin Yeo, herein lies the difficulty.
There is no obligation in the Refugee Convention, either explicit or implicit, to claim asylum in the first safe country reached by a refugee.
The UN Refugee Convention actually gives refugees a degree of choice as to where they seek asylum, in fact.
Article 31 of the Convention protects refugees against prosecution for illegal entry to a receiving country in certain circumstances:
The Contracting States shall not impose penalties, on account of their illegal entry or presence, on refugees who, coming directly from a territory where their life or freedom was threatened in the sense of article 1, enter or are present in their territory without authorization, provided they present themselves without delay to the authorities and show good cause for their illegal entry or presence.
This is not a right of entry. But it is protection against penalisation if the person does manage to evade the border guards and enter a country anyway. Remember the hostile environment and Sue Ellen frothing at the mouth about all the terribad things she would do to 'illegal migrants' but actually she did fuck all? She knew she was going to do fuck all, and she knew the above Article was exactly why.
The 'problem' is fuck all to do with the ECHR or Strasbourg in reality. The issue comes from within the wording of
the Convention itself.
"But," you cry, "does that mean that a refugee can leave a country on the other side of the world, make no effort to claim asylum until they reach Shitthole-upon-Thames, and then claim asylum because they just fancy Shitthole-upon-Thames more than say, Lille?"
Yes. That is the exact correct reading of international law on this matter.
"b-b-but muh first safe country rule!! Where did that go???" Easy. The abolition of the 'first safe country rule' was one of the numerous benefits of Brexit. That went up in a blue light along with our EU membership. You see, that rule isn't found anywhere in the Convention, or any other bit of international refugee law.
Where it still is found, though, is in an agreement between EU members called the Dublin Convention. This is now incorporated into EU law, which as any fule kno, the UK is no longer a party to.
Back in the 1990s the EU set about creating the Common European Asylum System in order to standardise asylum law and process across the whole of the EU and thereby reduce incentives for asylum seekers to travel within the EU. If they would be treated broadly the same everywhere, the reasoning went, they would not seek to move between EU countries.
The development of the system was largely driven by the UK in order to rationalise the Dublin Convention, originally agreed outside the auspices of the EU in 1995. Latterly referred to as the Dublin system or the Dublin Regulation, it is now a piece of EU law. Where an asylum seeker has been fingerprinted in an EU Member State but then moves on to another EU Member State, under the Dublin system
the asylum seeker can be sent back to the first country to have the asylum claim processed there.
For example, if an asylum seeker reaches Italy, is fingerprinted then travels to the UK and claims asylum, pretty much the first thing the Home Office used to do is take fingerprints, check them against the central Eurodac fingerprint database and then if a match is found, notify the other country and send the asylum seeker back there pronto.
There is no legal duty or obligation on the asylum seeker to claim and remain in the first safe country and an asylum seeker who moves on is not breaking the law by doing so, or disqualifying themselves from refugee status. But as a matter of administration, one EU country can send the asylum seeker back to another EU country under this system.
There used to be over a thousand of these “Dublin removals” every year from the United Kingdom, although the number fell over time and was eventually exceeded by transfers in by children to join families here. There was however a very substantial chilling effect that encouraged a lot of people to just cool their heels in Hamburg and Napoli rather than trying to get to Kent and get bounced anyway. There is now absolutely no reason to
not try your luck and try to enter the UK.
An inevitable consequence of the type of Brexit pursued by the UK government was that the UK left the Common European Asylum System and the Dublin Regulation. In short,
removals to safe European countries were rendered impossible by Brexit.
Since Brexit, the UK government has tried to implement a system whereby those people who have passed through a third country can be excluded from the asylum system in certain circumstances. However the absence of anywhere to send people whose claims are deemed “inadmissible” has instead brought the asylum system to a grinding halt. (And hence, the absolute brain tumour of the 'Rwanda plan' - buy the right for these people to stay in another third country.)
"HOW CAN WE NO PUT THEM BACK IN CALAIS" inquires average Question Time panellist. The answer is simple: turning up on the territory of another sovereign nation, unloading individuals and running away - for this seems to be the proposal - is, in terms of international law and comity, very much the same as turning up and unloading some soldiers there for a bit of rape 'n' pillage. And is likely to meet with the same response.
We cannot just send refugees to France
because the French government would not accept them. One country cannot simply send a person to another country without the receiving country’s permission. Other countries don’t do it to us and we don’t do it to them. It’s pretty basic.
Imagine, how would it work? If just placed on a boat, plane, train or automobile, the receiving officials would refuse to let the person disembark or would just send them straight back to the UK. The UK would then face the same problem. Ferry terminals and airports would quickly start to fill with people caught in bureaucratic limbo. We would be as popular as a case of monkeypox on Grindr with our fellow sovereign nations. The smarter ones would very quickly ban flights and ships coming from the UK as they would know we were planning to dump a bushel of chinky dinks and run away.
UK border officials could physically take a person to the other country, perhaps, and then hand them over. But what happens when the receiving officials say “va te faire foutre”? Do the UK officials just leave with the gypsy in hot pursuit?
Intercepting dinghies in the Channel and then towing them to France likewise is also impossible, at least without endangering life. Actively firing on small boats with the intention to sink them and kill the occupants is the sort of thing the Americans get all invade-y about if they think you have any oil. We would definitely have to sit in the super naughty corner with Israel and Russia for that. Landing the occupants of the dinghies in France without French permission would be tantamount to an actual rather than imagined invasion. The French would certainly fire on any British ships attempting to do so.
