UK Announces Harsher Sentences for Illegal Immigrants in Bid to Deter Channel Crossings

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : The Home Office, when announcing the bill, said it was "very likely that those travelling to the UK via small boat will have come from a safe European Union country in which they could have claimed asylum."
48% : "Instead of peddling deliberately misleading myths and untruths about asylum and migration, the Home Office should be establishing safe routes for those few people escaping persecution who wish to seek asylum here."
45% : The Home Office said the sterner punishments were a bid to prevent "asylum shopping," claiming that some immigrants are allegedly "picking the UK as a preferred destination over others" when asylum could have been claimed earlier in their journey through Europe.
37% : Attempts will also be introduced to prevent individuals from making repeated "meritless" claims for asylum designed to delay their removal, the Whitehall department added.
35% : Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK's refugee and migrant rights director, said: "While the Home Office continues to make no safe and legal routes to the UK available for those claiming asylum, some people will continue to be forced to risk their lives to do so -- including in small boats across the Channel.

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