The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Border Security Bill) will turn seeking protection into a national security issue and expand counter-terrorism powers.

The Bill includes a wide array of alarming clauses, such as: the criminalisation of providing supplies or information meant to assist the travel of an undocumented migrant, the extension of powers to seize people’s devices at the border, the reduction of routes to claim asylum, the expansion of the detention estate, the restarting of deportation agreements, an increase in biometric surveillance, and an expansion of court orders that curtail civil liberties. This Bill also marks the first time a counter-terror framework has been used as the primary approach to migration policy.

We’ve let the Government know what we think of this Bill, and have called on MPs to vote down the Bill. Some of the powers in this Bill extend on previous powers introduced in other anti-migrant policies, and so alongside this, we also asked MPs to:

• Repeal the policy of seizing phones at the border (introduced in 2023 via the Illegal Migration Act)
• Repeal the criminalisation of facilitating crossings (introduced in 2022 via the Nationality and Borders Act

But we can’t make change alone. So if you want to join us in standing against this cruelty, and amplify our message of Protection Not Punishment, use our email template to urge your local representative to vote down the Bill.

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