London: The British government's Illegal Migration Bill, instrumental to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's pledge to "stop the boats" of illegal migrants entering the country's shores, has cleared its long-drawn parliamentary hurdle and will soon become law after Royal Assent from King Charles III.
Under the bill, the UK's Home Secretary will have a legal duty to detain and remove anyone entering the UK illegally. In a late-night debate in the House of Lords on Monday, further amendments to the bill were dismissed and it passed after a standoff between both Houses over the issue.
In the last few weeks, the bill passed between the House of Commons and House of Lords a number of times in a process often dubbed as parliamentary ping-pong in British politics until a consensus is reached. In the Commons, former prime minister Theresa May led a series of backbench rebellions over plans to restrict access to the UK asylum system for victims of modern
slavery.