UN refugee agency criticises Suella Braverman speech branding illegal migration ‘existential challenge’
The home minister presented her ideas for changing the worldwide asylum system just a few days before the Conservative Party conference. While Ms. Braverman was in Washington, DC, she delivered the speech to a US think tank.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman was reprimanded by the UN agency for refugees for her assertion that the current asylum system is no longer functional.
In a speech delivered in Washington, DC, Ms. Braverman urged for the reform of the international system.
She explained why she thought the current system was “outdated” and referred to the global refugee crisis as a “epoch-defining challenge.”
The senior cabinet official, whose remarks were approved by No. 10, advocated for amendments to the 1951 UN Human Rights Convention, which serves as the framework for the asylum system.
The convention “remains as relevant today as when it was adopted in providing an indispensable framework for addressing those challenges, based on international cooperation,” the UNHCR said in response to Ms. Braverman’s remarks.
It said, “The need is for greater and more consistent execution of the convention and its underlying concept of responsibility sharing, not for reform or more restrictive interpretation.
“Strengthening and accelerating decision-making processes would be a reasonable reaction to the rise in arrivals and the existing asylum backlog in the UK.
“This would promote the quick return of individuals without valid immigration status while accelerating the integration of those who are determined to be refugees.
“UNHCR has made specific and implementable recommendations to the UK government in this regard and continues to support positive, ongoing efforts to reduce the backlog of asylum claims.”
Uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism, according to Ms. Braverman, are a “existential challenge for the political and cultural institutions of the West.” Over the past few decades, uncontrolled immigration, inadequate integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven to be a toxic combination for Europe.
She criticized how, in “extreme cases,” the volume of migration at the moment has “undermined the stability and threatened the security of society.”
“Something is seriously wrong if people can’t settle in our countries and start thinking of themselves as British, American, French, or German,” she continued.
According to Ms. Braverman, “we now live in a completely different time” than when the UN Human Rights Convention was ratified.
Does the Refugee Convention require reform? she continued.
How might a new global asylum framework look?
How may national rights and human rights be better balanced so that neither threatens national sovereignty?
