The United Kingdom has disclosed that its Parliament is working on stiffer penalty for migrants arrested entering the country without permission and people smugglers amid a record-breaking rise in arrivals over the English Channel.

According to Britain’s Home Secretary, Priti Patel, the country is making plans to overhaul asylum rules, therefore, has come up with stricter prison sentences for both migrants and people smugglers to check what was described as “asylum shopping”.

The legislation announced on Saturday makes it a criminal offence to arrive in the UK without permission, with a maximum sentence for those entering the country unlawfully increasing from six months to four years.

Also, people smugglers will now face life sentences from the initial maximum of 14 years imprisonment as the new law set for its first reading in the Parliament on Tuesday.

Patel said the plans were “fair but firm”, stressing that the UK would

welcome people through safe and legal routes whilst preventing abuse of the system, cracking down on illegal entry and the criminality associated with it.

The presentation of the bill emerges as Britain’s asylum system has been under the pressure of a record number of arrivals over the Channel.

Channels TV reports that,

A total of nearly 6,000 migrants have made the dangerous crossing in the first six months of 2021.

The total number of 8,417 arrivals for the whole of 2020 is likely to be overtaken in the next two months if trends continue, according to figures from the domestic Press Association news agency.

Britain’s department of Home Office said it was

very likely that those travelling to the UK via small boat will have come from a safe European Union country in which they could have claimed asylum.

Where this is the case, they are not seeking refuge at the earliest opportunity or showing good reason for seeking to enter the UK illegally but are instead ‘asylum shopping’ by picking the UK as a preferred destination over others and using an illegal route to get here,

it added.

The British government started plans earlier this year for what it described the biggest changes to asylum rules in decades, saying the current system was overwhelmed.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.