A law has recently been pushed through that would make the government able to revoke citizenship of people without notice, making a person stateless without notice or appeal. This bill attacks migrants’ rights and violates the refugee convention. With an estimated of 6 million people to be affected, especially ethnic minorities. In official terms, The Nationality and Borders Bill amends Section 77 of the Nationality, Immigration, and Asylum Act 2002, in order to make it easier to remove someone with a pending asylum claim to a safe third country.
This bill was first introduced to the House of Commons on the 6th of July 2021 and very little talk surrounded it within the public. It was then silently pushed through as news on the No 10 parties broke.
As stated by Amnesty International UK, the government has said that this bill will save lives and their reply to that is, “There is no question most, if not all, journeys to the UK by people seeking asylum are unsafe, but criminalising people for making these journeys doesn’t take away people’s need to seek asylum in the UK.”
This is very unlikely to save lives, the likelihood of people dying or suffering serious harm has now become much greater. There will be no safe route for those seeking asylum and nothing is being done to establish one.
Another thing that has been highlighted is that under immigration rules in the UK there is no route permitting someone to come to the UK to seek asylum but all applications for someone to seek asylum must be made within in the UK. Making it an impossible task as this bill will harm those who have reached the UK without permission being given before arrival. Penalties will be given which could include stripping the reunion through family visas. A tiring loop that those seeking asylum will become trapped in.
The UK taking away citizenship is not something new and was rare until 2017, the number of people stripped of their British citizenship were fewer than 20 a year. Now, it is more than 100. The difference being this time is that there will be no warning and no way to stop it from happening.
Yvette Cooper, the new Shadow Home Secretary who spoke for the opposition of the bill said that this bill would not provide any real solutions and only make things worse.
“In November, 27 people died in the cold English Channel. We need solutions and co-operation.” She continued, “We need safe and legal routes that the Home Secretary has promised and not delivered.”
In the Healthcare industry there are many workers whose country of birth is not the UK. With this new bill being placed there is no guarantee whether those workers will be affected or not. Though, it is clear that this industry will yet again face constant amounts of stress and pressure from another increase in lost workers.
This bill has the potential of heavily impacting the healthcare industry.
There are many updates currently happening surrounding this bill and many people are taking a stand against it. However, as of 23/02/2022, this bill is now in the final stages of being passed.
We will continue to keep you updated with any news on The Nationality and Borders Bill.
