United Kingdom’s Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, has stated that being gay or a woman with fear that one could be discriminated against in his/her country of origin is not enough reason to seek asylum in the United Kingdom or any Western country.
Braverman said this while giving a speech in Washington D.C. and warned that unbridled immigration is an ‘existential threat’ to the Western countries.
She made it known that multiculturalism had ‘failed’ and added that many of those migrating to the Western world were not in danger.
According to her, uncontrolled immigration triggers crime.
She however called for an overhaul of United Nations (UN) refugee rules and made it known that unless governments discover a way of controlling their borders, they would ‘not endure’.
Mail Online reports that Braverman branded the system “unsustainable” and argued that it creates “huge incentives for illegal migration”.
She reiterated that being trafficked as a sex slave is totally different from paying a gang to smuggle you across the Channel, and therefore voiced out the prospect of rewriting the UN’s 1951 treaty to raise the requirements for asylum claims.
She said the UN treaty played a major role in the crisis that has seen around 110,000 migrants cross the Channel on dinghies to get to Britain since 2018.
She said: “The vast majority have passed through multiple safe countries, and in some instances have resided in safe countries for several years. In this sense, there is an argument that they should cease to be treated as refugees when considering the legitimacy of their onward movement.”
Braverman remarked that the UN Convention defines refugees as individuals with “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”
While speaking further, she said: “However, as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution, in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination.
“A similar shift away from a ‘well-founded fear’ towards a ‘credible’ or ‘plausible fear’.
“The practical consequence of which has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for asylum, and to lower the threshold for doing so.
“Let me be clear, there are vast swathes of the world where it is extremely difficult to be gay or to be a woman.
“Where individuals are being persecuted, it is right that we offer sanctuary.
“But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection.”
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