Joint statement on Anti Refugee Bill – for signature by organisations in GM

The Government's Nationality and Borders Bill – or Anti Refugee Bill, threatens the biggest overhaul of the UK's asylum and immigration system in 20 years, and fundamentally threatens the right to seek asylum in the UK. The Bill is currently nearing report stage in the House of Commons.

Asylum Matters are asking organisations and groups across Greater Manchester to sign up to this joint public statement by 17 November 2021 to make clear the opposition to the Bill in our communities.

If passed into law, the Bill will:

• Criminalise the act of entering the UK to seek asylum
• Create a two-tier system based on the journeys people made to get here, rather than their need for protection
• Separate families and lead to more dangerous journeys for people attempting to reach safety
• Create ever longer backlogs and delays in the asylum process
• Warehouse people in unsuitable institutional accommodation rather than housing people as neighbours in communities
• Lead to greater poverty and homelessness
• Seek to establish unsafe and costly offshore centres which have elsewhere led to appalling human rights abuses
• Fly in the face of international law