So over 1000 people have been charged with illegal arrival. This is 'the crime' of reaching the UK without authorisation. The prosecution decisions are somewhat, a big cohort of boat drivers (expected given the Government's desire to equate the people who pilot the unseaworthy craft with smugglers), but also people who came by other routes, normally if they had previously tried, including by state sanctioned means, to come to the UK.
The judges, in general, have been sentencing people to under 12 months on a guilty plea, at least for those with no previous attempts to come here. This is crucial because you are only excluded from asylum if you get 12 months or more (nb. You still can't be deported if you would otherwise qualify but you are not given leave).
In response to the 'problem', the Government introduced a bunch of new offences, endangering life at sea can be commited by checking tide times, sharing safety information and so on. This will bring your sentence to over the refugee convention exclusion limit.
Why are they so keen to do this? Because it is meant to deter people from taking it the backroute. It obviously doesn't and they know that. What it does is makes these journeys more perilous and disproportionately criminilises the poorest and thus most vulnerable. It is predominantly black Africans who captain the boats because they can't afford a seat any other way.
The civil servants and politicians know all this, but they carry on regardless. It allows them to put out breathless press releases about smashing the gangs. It kills more people and leaves thousands of people in administrative limbo. The obvious conclusion is that their problem is neither the boats nor the deaths at sea, but the people.
As someone said yesterday, they don't want to stop the boats, you would do that by ending visas, they want to stop the people.
https://freemovement.org.uk/1000-people-convicted-for-illegal-arrival/#UKPol,
#Migration,
#Refugees,
#AbolishFrontex
