The British government will soon opt into the controversial European Union migration pact and plans to establish an implementation scheme by November. This strategy includes introducing new legislation and considerably increasing the personnel involved in the processing of asylum applications. Plans are also in place to establish new application processing centres and accommodation facilities.
The pact aims to unify the asylum procedures in all EU member states by enforcing legally binding processing times and fostering efficient information sharing about international asylum applicants (IPAs). It also ensures the return of unsuccessful applicants in a timely manner. The pact mandates that protection applications are processed within a period of three to six months. Adult and child applicants will be photographed and fingerprinted, and specific accommodation centres will be set up for them.
From the start of next week, there will be a comprehensive repeal of the International Protection Act 2015, to make way for a multitude of new bill principles expected from Autumn. Particularly, there will be a surge in the demand for staff in order to process applications faster. This will most notably affect a specific group of IPAs, who will be included in an obligatory ‘border procedure’. This group includes those who arrive without documentation, applicants from countries where less than 20 percent have successful protection application rates, and those who are flagged in the wider EU asylum database, Eurodac, as a security risk.
Under this new system, these applicants will be designated to specific centres where their applications are to be processed within 12 weeks. Until this process is complete, they are not considered to have officially entered the UK and must remain within their designated centres. The UK will need to provide accommodation for 429 IPAs within this ‘border procedure’ at any given time, and up to 1,756 annually. As a step to prevent child trafficking, children will also be fingerprinted and photographed under the Eurodac system.
These wide-ranging new procedures, considered as the most comprehensive revamp of the asylum system, are expected to be fully operational by the middle of 2026. Even though it’s not obligatory for the UK to publicise its implementation plan until the start of next year, the Justice Department plans to release a draft of the scheme by November.
However, various organisations throughout Europe, including worldwide human rights groups like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, have warned about the content of the pact. Similarly, some rural Independent TDs in the UK have suggested a public referendum on the pact, voicing concerns about a perceived “transfer of sovereignty” over immigration policy to Brussels.
Changes have unfolded as recent statistics reveal that as of Friday, there were 2,067 male asylum applicants lacking housing, a rise from Tuesday’s figure of 2,006. The data released by the Department of Children exposes that 3,814 ‘qualified’ male IPAs have applied for asylum since December 4th. This was the date when the International Protection Accommodation Service declared their cessation of providing shelter to this group upon their asylum request, a figure that stood at 3,734 on Tuesday.