The Government has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords over its Borders Act, including plans to treat asylum seekers differently depending on how they arrive in the UK.
The government says it wants to discourage people from using illegal routes.
But a Labor colleague who fled Nazi Germany as a child said the proposal was “nonsense” and “unworkable”.
Peers also voted on powers allowing the government to strip Britons of their citizenship without warning.
The defeats came during a debate on the government’s Nationality and Borders Bill – legislation to implement a post-Brexit asylum system.
The government has said it will create a “tough but fair” process that will allow Britain to “take full control of its borders”.
However, some of its provisions have drawn criticism and protests.
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Colleagues in the House of Lords on Tuesday night attacked one of the provisions of the bill that would make it a criminal offense to knowingly enter the UK without a permit.
Those arriving through official channels – such as the Syrian resettlement scheme – would be quickly brought to a new life in the UK.
Meanwhile, people who rely on other routes, including using human smugglers, to get into the UK could face difficulty obtaining permanent residence or be sent back to safe countries they passed through en route.
It comes as Home Secretary Priti Patel is under pressure to reduce the number of attempts to enter the UK by crossing the Channel on boats.
Home Secretary Baroness Williams of Trafford argued the provision strikes “a robust balance of firmness and fairness”.
However, Labour’s Lord Dubs, who fled Nazi Germany as a child, said people often had difficulty getting to Britain through the official channels.
“It’s complete nonsense, it’s impractical and it belittles this country in the eyes of the world,” he said.
Lord Kerr – a former senior official at the Foreign Office – said if the law passed it would prevent Ukrainians fleeing conflict from entering the UK.
He also expressed his concern that other countries would follow Britain’s lead, leading to a situation where “anyone wishing to flee persecution would slam the gates of liberty in their face”.
In a vote, colleagues backed his proposal to remove the relevant clause from the bill by a vote of 204 to 126, a majority of 78.
The House of Lords inflicted another defeat on the government when it voted against powers allowing the government to strip people of their British citizenship without warning.
Under international law, everyone has the right to a nationality, so people cannot remain stateless “arbitrarily”.
However, the UK government says it is possible to strip people of their citizenship if they have another nationality to fall back on – for example if they have dual citizenship.
The Minister of the Interior can exercise power in certain cases, for example if it is “for the common good”.
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In February 2019, Shamima Begum, who traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State when she was 15, had her citizenship revoked.
Conservative Baroness Warsi, who served as the first Muslim woman in cabinet, said the government’s new proposal would make her and her children “second-class citizens”.
“What this law does is that in the UK, in our courts, we punish two people convicted of the same offense differently because of their origin.
“We may not have used this moment to right past wrongs, but the least we can do is prevent a bad law from getting worse.”
Liberal Democrat colleague and former senior police commander Lord Paddick argued that people who have committed crimes such as terrorist attacks should be tried in Britain rather than being made “another country’s problem”.
Baroness Williams said those who obey the law have nothing to fear and that the law is aimed at those who pose a direct threat to “the security of the UK”.
“It just can’t be right that our hands are tied because we can’t take away their British citizenship without telling them that decision.”
The government suffered two more defeats over the right of exiled Chagos Islanders to obtain British citizenship and an amendment requiring the law to conform with international protections for refugees.
Once the House of Lords has finished considering the bill, it will return to the House of Commons, where MPs will decide whether to accept or reject the amendments.
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