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Home Office plans to tag Channel crossing asylum-seekers sets a ‘new and unprecedented low’

REPORTED plans to tag and curfew Channel crossing asylum-seekers sets a “new and unprecedented low” in the government’s approach to refugees, a charity warned today.

The Home Office is reportedly drawing up plans that would see people seeking safety in Britain fitted on arrival with electronic tags in a similar way to prisoners released on bail. 

The tags would be used while asylum-seekers of working age are waiting for a decision on their claim.  

Officials are said to be considering the measures, including introducing curfews, in a bid to deter Channel crossings by making it more difficult for asylum-seekers to get jobs on the black market. 

But campaigners said the inhumane government plans “smack of desperation” and would not stop people making dangerous journeys across the Channel. 

“Treating innocent men, women and young adults who have fled war and persecution like criminals is cruel, draconian and punitive and sets a new and unprecedented low in the UK’s approach to responding to people in desperate need,” Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon slammed. 

“It won’t act as a deterrent nor stop people making dangerous journeys across the channel.

“Instead the government needs to create more safe routes for people and ensure everybody who reaches our shores is treated with humanity and given a fair hearing on UK soil.”
 
Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants interim chief executive Minnie Rahman said: “The government seems bent on pursuing ever more desperate and draconian measures like electronic tags, which are disproportionate and aimed at solving a problem that simply does not exist.”

It comes as the government seeks to push through legislation that would hand asylum-seekers four-year prison sentences for entering the country via an irregular route. 

The Nationality and Borders Bill, currently making its way through Parliament, also seeks to give life sentences to people smugglers. 

The latest reports suggest the government intends to go even further in its bid to criminalise asylum-seekers crossing the Channel on small boats. 

Reports cited a Home Office source, who said: “Tagging will make it quicker and easier to deport those who have no right to be here.

The source added that the plan was “in part to stop the pull factor, and part to stop people absconding while their claims to stay are being processed.”

The Home Office declined to comment on the tagging plans.

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