National Assembly of France approves tough immigration law
DHARAMSALA, April 23: The National Assembly of France, the country’s lower house has passed a tough new immigration law to tighten the rules around asylum.
The bill passed in the National Assembly of France shortens asylum application deadlines, doubles the time for which illegal migrants can be detained, and introduces a one-year prison sentence for entering France illegally, reports BBC.
According to the report, the French President Emmanuel Macron’s governing centrist party has said that the bill will speed up the process of claiming asylum.
Though the bill is said to have aimed to simplify and speed up asylum-application processes, it has left the opposition and human rights groups a concerned lot as they fear that the measure goes too far.
The tough new immigration law seeks to shorten asylum applications and introduces a one-year prison sentence for entering France illegally and reduced the asylum seekers have to submit their application from 120 to 90 days and gives them only two weeks to appeal if rejected among others.
Human Rights Watch believes that Shortening asylum application deadlines could negatively impact the most vulnerable asylum seekers, who would be the ones most likely to miss the deadline.
The bill was approved by 228 votes to 139, with 24 abstentions on Sunday after more than 60 hours of debate in the National Assembly of France. The bill will now be debated in the Senate, the upper house of the French parliament later in June.
Off late, many Tibetan refugees are seeking asylum in France and like the rest of the immigrants, the tough new immigration law will also have an adverse effect on the Tibetan asylum seekers too if the Senate approves the bill in June.
