WASHINGTON – The Biden administration’s seemingly unhinged approach to the global migration crisis is “unsustainable,” British Home Secretary Suella Braverman plans to argue in a meeting with officials from the Department of Justice and Homeland Security this week.
“Illegal immigration and the unprecedented mass movement of people around the world are putting unsustainable pressure on America, the UK and Europe,” Braverman said in a statement before traveling to the US on Monday evening.
“If we fail to face this challenge, then our political institutions risk losing their democratic legitimacy,” he added.
Braverman plans to argue that the US and its European allies should tighten their definition of refugees who are allowed to seek safe harbor.
International approach
During his three-day trip, Braverman will meet with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland to discuss ways to stop the flow of illegal immigrants entering both the UK and the US and tackle organized immigration crime, the British Home Office said in a statement.
British Home Secretary Suella BravermanAP
Braverman – herself the daughter of Indian immigrants to the UK – also plans to “present an action plan for how other countries can combat this crisis,” in a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, where she will call for international changes to who the Western world considers to be asylum seekers. which is valid.
“Seeking asylum and seeking better economic prospects are not the same thing. Seeking refuge in the first safe country you reach or shopping for your chosen destination is not the same thing,” he planned to say, according to a prepared excerpt of his speech. “Being trafficked … and being smuggled – that is having someone sneak into a country – are not the same thing.”
Braverman believes the global asylum framework – rooted in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention established to help resettle people who fled after World War II and the Holocaust – “enables the amalgamation of these categories, creates[ing] a huge incentive for illegal immigration.”
An immigrant tries to pass under the concertina wire after he crossed the Rio Grande river from Mexico to the United States.James Keivom
Migrants cross the Rio Grande river from Mexico into the United States before they are processed and detained by US Customs and Border Protection officials on Saturday, September 23, 2023 in Eagle Pass, Texas.James Keivom
“It was a remarkable achievement for its time. But more than 70 years, we now live in a completely different time,” he plans to say.
Citing analysis from the UK’s Center for Policy Studies, he is expected to say the UN convention “now grants a notional right to move to another country to at least 780 million people.”
“Therefore it is the responsibility of politicians and thought leaders to ask whether the refugee convention, and the way it is interpreted through our courts, is appropriate for our modern times, or whether it needs reform?” he planned to say.
A Honduran mother crawls through concertina wire with her three children after crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico.James Keivom
“refugee” reform
Today, UN policy defines the term “refugee” as a person who, “due to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion” cannot remain safely in their home. country.
But Braverman would argue that “we have seen in practice a shift in interpretation away from ‘persecution,’ in favor of something more akin to the definition of “discrimination”.
“I think most civilians would recognize those who are fleeing a real risk of death, torture, oppression or violence, as needing protection,” he suggested. “… But we wouldn’t be able to maintain an asylum system if, in fact, just being gay, or a woman, and fearing discrimination in your home country, was enough to qualify for protection.”
Migrants cross the Rio Grande river from Mexico on September 25, 2023. James Keivom
Still, he believes there is a difference between “discrimination” and “persecution” – and those suffering from the latter should be offered “sanctuary.”
Braverman will also support the Western world to encourage refugees seeking asylum to first apply for safe harbor in the first country they pass through.
“The status quo, where people can travel through several safe countries, and even stay in safe countries for years, while they choose their destination of choice to claim asylum, is absurd and unsustainable,” he said.
Migrants crossing the Rio Grande river from Mexico to the United States are transported by US Customs and Border Protection officers by boat for processing.James Keivom
Although the Biden administration has encouraged immigrants seeking asylum to register in the first country they pass through, enforcement has become unclear as illegal border crossings climb.
“The refugee convention makes that clear [refugee status] it is meant to apply to individuals ‘who come directly from regions where their lives are in danger,’” Braverman plans to say. “The UK along with many others, including America, interpret this to mean that people should seek protection and claim asylum in the first safe country they reach … but NGOs and others, including the UN Refugee Agency, are against it.”
Increase in illegal immigration
Braverman’s visit comes as British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has prioritized “stopping the boats” – the arrival of migrants in small boats from mainland Europe.
Suella Braverman called the Biden administration’s response to the global migration crisis “unsustainable”.AP
Braverman would note that, like most migrants on the US southern border, “the vast majority” of those asylum seekers “have passed through several safe countries, and in some cases have resided in safe countries for several years.”
“In this sense, there is an argument that they should stop being treated as refugees when considering the legality of their next movement,” he suggested.
London’s work on the issue is in stark contrast to the Biden administration, which has shown a lack of readiness to deal with the crisis as the number of illegal immigration continues to rise every year since the president took office in 2021.
While White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Friday said Biden has “imposed consequences for those who have no legal basis to stay,” deporting more than 250,000 immigrants from the US since May, new DHS data released Friday shows the problem it continues to grow.
With a month left in fiscal year 2023, there have been more than 2.86 million Border Patrol encounters with immigrants trying to enter the US illegally – up from 2.77 million counted in all of FY 2022, according to the DHS report.
With the numbers rising, Jean-Pierre on Friday called US immigration policy a “broken system” – but faulted the Trump administration for its “courage[ing] immigration system for four years” and the GOP for “trying to undermine border security.”
“We would like to do this in a bipartisan way, but we don’t see it,” Jean-Pierre said. “What we’re seeing from House Republicans is wanting to defund DHS.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
