UK Considers Off-Shoring Asylum Seekers

According to The Guardian, the UK has been exploring the possibility of off-shoring asylum seekers to detention facilities in Moldova, Morocco, or Papua New Guinea.

If you’re thinking, hey, Australia did this, and it hasn’t been all that great. Well, the UK is aware of that. At least, the UK is aware that Australia off-shored asylum seekers (if not the problems with their program). The request for input on this possibility specifically stated it was looking for analysis of a detention setup “similar to the Australian model in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.”

Ominously, The Guardian notes that in the documents it reviewed:

the UK’s proposals would go further than Australia’s hardline system, which is “based on migrants being intercepted outside Australian waters”, allowing Australia to claim no immigration obligations to individuals. The UK proposals, the documents state, would involve relocating asylum seekers who “have arrived in the UK and are firmly within the jurisdiction of the UK for the purposes of the ECHR and Human Rights Act 1998”.

-KitJ