Priti Patel’s Nationality and Borders Bill: a ‘punitive’ or ‘courageous’ asylum plan?

Ministers claim they’ve been driven to action by ‘an upsurge’ of asylum seekers. In fact, current UK numbers are relatively low

French rescue teams help a group of migrants in Calais
French rescue teams help a group of migrants in Calais who were rescued while attempting to reach England by crossing the Channel on an inflatable boat
(Image credit: BERNARD BARRON/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2012, Gulwali Passarlay, a teenage Afghan refugee, proudly carried the Olympic torch on its way to the London Games, said Kenan Malik in The Observer. Only six years earlier, he was a desperate 12-year-old caught in the crossfire between Taliban and US forces in Afghanistan. His mother paid a smuggler to take him on a “gruelling 12,000-mile trek” which ended up with him entering Britain in a refrigerated lorry. Yet had Home Secretary Priti Patel’s new Nationality and Borders Bill been law in 2006, Passarlay would have committed a criminal offence just by coming here.

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