U.K. looks to stop migrant crossings by denying nearly all asylum claims. Is it legal?

Britain's interior minister said the proposal to stop almost all migrants from claiming asylum were legal despite warnings that the legislation would break international law.

Britain’s interior minister Suella Braverman said on Wednesday the government’s proposals to stop almost all migrants ever claiming asylum were legal despite warnings that the legislation would break international laws and be challenged in the courts.

Lawyers and charities said the plans would breach the United Nations convention on refugees, introduced after many countries turned away Jewish refugees during World War Two.

Braverman wrote on the first page of the draft law that the plans could break the government’s Human Rights Act but said she included that statement “out of an abundance of caution.”

“We are confident that we are complying with the law, domestic and international,” she told the BBC. “But we are also pushing the boundaries and we are testing innovative and novel legal arguments.”

The new legislation is the latest in a series of contentious immigration policies put forward by the Conservative government under successive prime ministers aimed at stopping people arriving on England’s coast by small boats. Last year, the government announced a plan to send some of them to Rwanda.

Under the government’s plans, almost all asylum seekers who reach Britain in small boats will be detained without bail before they are deported to their home country or, if this is not safe, another destination such as Rwanda.

They will also lose the right to challenge their deportation while in Britain, and once deported will be automatically banned from returning.

Last year, a record 45,000 people came to Britain in small boats across the Channel, mainly from France. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said finding a solution is a top priority with the government spending more than 2 billion pounds ($2.4 billion) a year to accommodate them.