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OVER 100 refugee charities are calling on Suella Braverman to create safe routes for asylum-seekers to reach Britain.
In a letter to the new Home Secretary — reappointed by PM Rishi Sunak in a highly criticised move — charities argue that the creation of a “kind and effective system” to tackle the record asylum backlog is something “worth dreaming about.”
Ms Braverman has been condemned for ramping up the government’s anti-refugee agenda, even professing it was her “dream and obsession” to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
She has repeatedly claimed that asylum-seekers should only enter through safe and legal routes.
However, the letter, co-ordinated by charity IMIX and coalition campaign Together With Refugees, argues that it is “impossible” to ask refugees to come through the government’s extremely limited refugee resettlement schemes.
“Even Afghan interpreters who are eligible for one of our few existing schemes remain in hiding from the Taliban,” it warns.
It adds: “You have referred to this country’s proud history of offering sanctuary, so we ask you to make this happen with a fair, kind and effective system for refugees.
“Deal with the backlog in asylum cases, create safe routes, respect international law, and the UN convention on refugees, and give refugees a fair hearing, however they get here. Then you would have really done something worth dreaming about.”
It comes as anger continued to grow at the weekend over Ms Braverman’s reappointment as home secretary just days after she was forced to resign over a security breach.
Labour is demanding the government publish its assessment into the Home Secretary’s sharing of a sensitive document with a Tory backbencher from a personal email without permission.
But yesterday, Cabinet minister Michael Gove rejected these calls, insisting Ms Braverman is a “first-rate, front-rank politician” despite a series of allegations of leaks by the Home Secretary.