The Secretary of State for the Home Department, Priti Patel, is expected next week to unveil a consultation on a change in the law which would allow asylum seekers to be processed in third countries. The Home Office claims that making crossing the channel ‘unviable’ will deter asylum seekers from making the perilous journey, and that not to explore every option, including sending those intercepted off-shore for processing, would be ‘irresponsible’. The announcement will come as part of Priti Patel’s radical overhaul of the UK immigration and asylum system.
There have been reports that Gibraltar and the Isle of Man were being discussed as potential locations for the centres, although both have stated that they have not been approached by the UK Government about such proposals and, should they be, would decline.
The proposals are not entirely novel. Last year, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, as it then was, was asked to look into the feasibility of establishing such centres on Ascension Island and Saint Helena. The Home Secretary appears to have drawn inspiration from Australia, which in 2013 began relocating asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea and Micronesia to be detained in immigration detention centres indefinitely.
The conditions of Australia’s centres, where multiple deaths have been reported – have been condemned by the United Nations. In 2015, Britain was amongst 100 countries to criticise Australia for the practice of off-shore asylum processing in a UN Human Rights Council review, the exact policy which is now being explored by the Home Secretary for the second time in less than a year.
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