Cooper on processing asylum claims abroad: ‘We will always look at what works’
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said “we will always look at what works” when asked if she was any closer to saying that asylum claims should be processed abroad.
She was asked the question on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme after it was put to her that other countries could be considering plans to process asylum claims abroad.
New processes
Ms Cooper said: “Well, we have said, and I think I’ve said this in conversations with you before as well, Nick, that we will always look at what works.
“The interesting thing about what a lot of countries are talking about and what a lot of the European countries are looking at at the moment is what they call broader procedures and fast-track decisions around particularly people who are arriving from predominantly safe countries.
“We do want to pursue that so that we have new fast-track arrangements in place. If somebody is arriving from a safe country, then actually you should be able to turn around those asylum decisions, turn around returns very swiftly. That does involve new processes.”
International law
She added: “What Italy is looking at with Albania is being able to take those fast-track decisions. So it is just for predominantly safe countries, in Albania, now they have been working to make sure that they are compliant with international law, and they do have the UNHCR overseeing the work that they are doing.
“So this is very different from the really chaotic Rwanda scheme, where, you know, the government, previous government, the Conservatives, spent £700 million in the two and a half years it was running in order to send four volunteers to Rwanda.”
Ms Cooper also said she feels stronger action is needed to tackle anyone working illegally in the UK and added that immigration enforcement visits have increased by about 20% over the summer and enforced returns have increased nearly 20% since the election compared with the previous year.
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What has changed? Any effort by the previous government to deport undocumented .migrants was blocked by Labour,Human Rights Lawyers and various charities. What checks were ever made to France to account for the £millions that they were given by the UK Government in order to stop the channel crossings? There are many cases French customs officials etc.standing by when people were climbing into the dangerous, not fit for purpose dinghies!!
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France wasn’t paid to stop the crossings, only increase policing along the coast to slow them down. Ultimately they can’t stop someone fleeing war and persecution. It was a smoke screen to placate the “something must be done” brigade that also relied on good old fashioned anti-French sentiment to let the Cons off the hook for the mess they created by leaving the Dublin deterrent without a replacement deal. Because no-one would risk the crossing if they were immediately returned to the first safe European country to have their claims processed.