People smuggling took off in 1987 - when safe routes were first blocked
It was U.K. government policy that took human smuggling from being a little known activity to gilt edged stock by 2000. In 1987, Douglas Hurd, then Home Secretary of the Conservative party, introduced legislation to fine airlines carrying undocumented passengers (which meant refugees could not take flights because there is no such thing as a refugee visa).
People began arriving via ships, lorries, vans, caravans and people carriers. People smugglers sold routes to refugees and immigrants from non white countries. A series of tragedies scarred the next few years. In 2000, 58 Chinese people suffocated in an airless container. In 2000, the then Home Secretary Jack Straw and his Prime Minister Tony Blair extended Hurd's legislation to cover every means of transport. The owners of lorries, cars, vans, caravans, camper-vans, people-carriers and trains, as well as planes and ships carrying asylum-seekers or migrants, wittingly or unwittingly, as passengers or stowaways, would be fined and risk confiscation of their vehicles. Blair's legislation closed off the last legitimate escape routes for tens of thousands of people, bringing huge profits to criminals and murderous consequences for people forced to use traffickers to reach the U.K. Mental torture continues With the threat of Rwanda still looming, thousands of asylum seekers across the UK are suffering mental anguish about their future. They are forbidden to work or contribute to this country's tax base, they are terrified of return, and living in fear of UK asylum policy. It is hard to believe that the UK Government cares about people smuggling. They simply don't want refugees here. Millions of tax payers money has been spent chasing the wrong objective. An alternative does exist. Provide Safe routes - Stop People Smuggling Right now people are taking dangerous risks. By providing refugee visas we know who is coming in - and people smugglers would no longer make money. We have not seen any Ukrainians getting in small boats or paying people smugglers. That's because safe routes have been opened across Europe for war refugees from Ukraine. As flawed as it is, the Homes for Ukraine programme has caused thousands of people to open their doors to Ukrainian war refugees seeking shelter, a new life, work, study, even bringing their pets over safely. We know this from the 1,400 or so Ukrainians who have asked our charity to find safe, registered sponsors. You won't find Ukrainians drowning with their children in the waters of the Channel or the Mediterranean. They have a safe route here. It angers us that we can't help the Syrians, the Iranians, the people from Yemen because there is no safe route for them to get here. Imaginative thinking, humanity and compassion. Each week, I receive a handful of emails from war refugees in Syria and elsewhere, pleading for a family to sponsor them, they send their passports and educational qualifications. Doctors, academics, professors. It is painful knowing we have thousands of potential hosts but no way of helping. This country does not need another Rwanda flight, we don't even need to spend that kind of money. Politics and hate needs to be thrown out of the asylum policy of this country. We need imaginative thinking, humanity and compassion. Thousands of UK families want to offer homes to war refugees from Africa and the Middle East. Thousands. We know this from our Room for Refugees Network, the oldest refugee hosting network in the UK, that has successfully sheltered - and transformed the lives of - more than 4,000 refugees. Homes for All War Refugees A safe route is possible for black and brown war refugees: we have Homes for Ukraine, now we need Homes for Syria, Homes for Iran, Homes for Iraq, Homes for Eritrea, Homes for Yemen etc. A properly curated matching programme that helps people arrive here to ready made homes, willing families who want to take them in. This would not be a minimal drain on the public purse, certainly it a fraction of the cost of the Rwanda failure. The number of refugees in the world is now over 100M. Refugees are not going away, they are coming our way. The choice is clear. Stop the Rwanda Deal and the mental torture that thousands of asylum seekers in the UK are suffering right now. Provide safe routes across Europe and kill off the people smuggling networks.
Thank you for all your support and please keep your suggestions and messages of support coming, it means the world to us!
Yours in the struggle, Robina Qureshi | 