Priti Patel’s plans to send asylum seekers to Africa for processing has sparked a furious reaction on social media, with one person calling it a “disgusting” move.
According to reports in The Times today the home secretary will introduce laws next week to enable the government to hold migrants in offshore hubs.
It is thought Patel is in talks with Denmark over sharing a centre in Africa, with the Scandinavian country eyeing up Rwanda as a hub after sending two ministers there to sign off a memorandum on asylum and migration.
In the memorandum, officials from both countries said that processing applications outside the EU would help “break the negative incentive structure of the present asylum system.”
The Home Office has also studied the Australian system which bans the arrival of asylum seekers by sea – with applications processed in offshore immigration centres in neighbouring countries such as Papa New Guinea.
A government source told The Times: “The prime minister and home secretary are determined to look at anything that will make a difference on Channel crossings”.
But the move has sparked furious reaction online.
The Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon pointed out that offshore processing is “an act of cruel and brutal hostility towards vulnerable people who through no fault of their own have had to flee war, oppression and terror.”
While Wolfgang Blau compared the moves to Germany’s far-right AfD party, which demands asylum centres in regions such as North Africa.
Here’s the pick of the reaction from elsewhere:
