Apsana Begum MP: “The Tories are seeking punishing people for seeking asylum.”  

Speaking about the Illegal Migration Bill during Day 1 and Day 2 of its Committee of the Whole House, Apsana Begum, MP for Poplar and Limehouse, said:
“The Illegal Migration Bill amounts to a refugee ban and attacks the rights of people most at risk of serious harm and persecution across the world.

Behind the numbers and statistics are real people with lives, hopes and dreams.

If the Tories seriously wanted to protect the lives at risk from small boat crossings, they would back more generous family reunification rights and support safe, functioning routes.

Instead, the Illegal Migration Bill is the latest in a long line of measures that form its “hostile environment” and toxic discriminatory, racist, and xenophobic narrative that is taking hold in many parts of the world based on fear and the manipulation of that fear.

The Tories are seeking punishing people for seeking asylum.

But not satisfied with this, they are seeking to ensure that they are not able to challenge this injustice.

All to deter people from coming to the UK to seek sanctuary.

Persecuting some of the most vulnerable people fleeing torture, war, or oppression during a climate of increasing anti-migrant hostility, with attacks on hotels housing asylum seekers and a growth in far-right activity, is cowardly and dangerous.

The Illegal Migration Bill will be marked in history as an extraordinary and chilling attack on our values and our way of life for years to come.”