What is the Border Security, Asylum, and Immigration Bill?

The new Bill creates additional criminal offences and expands law enforcement powers as part of its ‘border securitisation’ aim. In the style of counter-terrorism legislation, the Bill introduces new ‘precursor’ offences. These include criminal offences of supplying or handling almost any item to be used in connection with ‘illegal immigration’, and of collecting information to be used for arranging an unauthorised journey to the UK. Additionally, the Bill proposes a new offence of endangering another person during an illegal crossing in the English Channel, attracting a potential maximum sentence of six years.

Law enforcement powers intend to be expanded in association with these new offences. Immigration officers and police are empowered by the Bill to seize migrants’ mobile phones or other electronic devices. The Bill additionally strengthens powers to detain those potentially facing deportation and take biometric information. The new offences and associated powers are intended to prevent people coming to the UK to seek asylum, but have been criticised for criminalising migrants rather than people smugglers. 

The Bill repeals some of the previous government’s Rwanda legislation, while retaining the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 and parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023. The Bill wholly repeals the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act 2024. It also repeals parts of the Illegal Migration Act 2023: including the duty to remove asylum seekers to other countries, the power of the Home Office to accommodate separated children (instead of the local authority), and the power to “make provision about refusal to consent to scientific methods” for children whose age is being assessed.

However, the Bill retains significant provisions of the Illegal Migration Act, including expanded detention powers, modifications to the modern slavery regime (excluding certain victims of slavery and human trafficking from protections), additional countries on the white list of inadmissible asylum and human rights claims, the cap on entry under safe and legal routes, and the section providing that concealing information is to be regarded as damaging to an asylum seeker’s credibility.

The Bill also retains the Nationality and Borders Act 2022. This Act includes provisions creating a statutory basis for an inadmissibility regime under which the Home Secretary may simply refuse to consider someone’s asylum claim, and allows the Home Office to grant some refugees lesser status and rights as a penalty for passing through another country before coming to the UK. 

The Public Bill Committee will meet for the first time to scrutinise the Bill on 27th February, concluding its consideration of the Bill on 20th March.