Floundering Suella Braverman this morning admitted that people from many parts of the world need to arrive in the UK BEFORE applying for asylum because there are no legal routes.
The Home Secretary was unable to tell a panel of MPs how an orphaned African teenager escaping war - despite having a sibling living in the UK - could apply from abroad.
Instead she responded: "If you're able to get to the UK you're able to put in an application for asylum."
Backbench Tory MP Tim Loughton pointed out that this would involve entering the country illegally - the exact thing she says she is trying to stop.
At the same time Ms Braverman claimed the crisis at Manston asylum centre - where 4,000 arrivals were packed and which is now empty - was the fault of people travelling to the UK and "trying to abuse the generosity of the British people".
The under-fire cabinet member has been branded "out of her depth" after the car-crash exchange in front of a cross-party committee.
Speaking at the Home Affairs Committee, Mr Loughton asked the Home Secretary: "Let's do a bit of roleplay. I'm a 16-year-old orphan from an East African country escaping a warzone and religious persecution.
"I have a sibling legally in the UK at the moment. What's the safe legal route for me to come to the UK?"
The cabinet member responded: "We have an asylum system and people can put in applications."
Mr Loughton pressed how a teenager would do this. She responded: "If you're able to get to the UK you're able to put in an application."
Mr Loughton pointed out: "You would have entered the UK illegally then wouldn't you?"
Struggling Ms Braverman responded: "If you put in an application for asylum on arrival that would be the process that you enter."
The backbencher pressed the point again, saying: "How could you enter the UK if you didn't have permission to get onto an aircraft to arrive legally?"
The Home Secretary was unable to respond, instead deferring to officials.
Matthew Rycroft, permanent secretary to the Home Office, said that in some cases those fleeing could apply to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) - but conceded there are "some countries where that's not possible".
Mr Loughton said: "I think the point is that we're short of legal routes other than for specific groups of people that we've generously offered safe havens to."
Following the exchange, Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Alistair Carmichael said: “Suella Braverman’s inability to answer reveals a shocking truth: under the Conservatives, there is no safe and legal route for refugees to come to the UK to claim asylum.
"That’s what hands power to smuggling and trafficking gangs to profit from dangerous Channel crossings.
“Never has a Home Secretary been more out of their depth. Every day this Conservative Government remains in office brings more embarrassment to our great country.”
Later the Prime Minister's spokesman, asked how a 16-year-old from Africa could claim asylum, said: "So through a number of schemes - UK resettlement scheme, community sponsorship, mandate scheme - we have accepted 27,000 people through safe and legal routes from other countries including Iraq, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, for example and that's since 2015 to 2021. So there are routes.
"Fundamentally the Government has to make a choice that there aren't unlimited numbers of places and it does pose significant challenges to councils and other public services in particular.
"We believe we have rightly prioritised groups such as those coming from Ukraine in Afghanistan who make up the large majority of numbers."
The Home Secretary was today asked why 4,000 people were packed into the Manston processing centre in Kent earlier this month while the situation was "forseeable".
The site is designed to hold just 1,600, and has now dropped to zero.
Asylum seekers are meant to be at Manston for only short periods of time while undergoing security and identity checks, before being moved to the Home Office's asylum accommodation.
She said she was did not know how many judicial reviews are underway in relation to Manston.
