The UK government today will announce plans for asylum seekers who cross the English Channel in small boats to be flown for processing to Rwanda.
Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to sign a deal with the East African nation during a visit on Thursday, with people seeking sanctuary in the UK to be sent more than 6,500 kms.
Some of those who make the perilous crossing of the Channel, as well as by other means deemed “illegal” by the UK government, would be sent to Rwanda while their claims are assessed “offshore”.
An initial £120 million (€144 million) is expected to be given to the Rwandan government under a trial scheme, which is being criticised by refugee charities as a “cruel and nasty decision” that will fail to address the issue and “lead to more human suffering and chaos”.
Asylum seekers who remain in the UK while their claims are considered could be housed in stricter reception centres under the plans. The first will reportedly open in the village of Linton-on-Ouse, in North Yorkshire.
News of the scheme quickly drew derision from the UK opposition parties as well as refugee advocates, including the Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, who told the BBC it would not work.
“I really worry that this is not the right way to treat asylum seekers. We have an international duty under the Refugee Convention to look after asylum seekers well. They are big issues. They’ve got to tackled and I don’t think this is the way to do it,” he said.
“I remain to be convinced that it’s going to be deterrent in any way.”
The UK Labour party accused Boris Johnson of trying to distract from being fined for breaching coronavirus laws with “unworkable, unethical and extortionate” plans.
Human rights campaigners have described the Government’s plan as “barbaric”, “cowardly” “shockingly ill-conceived”.
Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said that the African nation had a “dismal human rights record”.
In a statement, Mr Valdez-Symonds said: “Sending people to another country – let alone one with such a dismal human rights record – for asylum ‘processing’ is the very height of irresponsibility and shows how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues.
“The [UK] Government is already wrecking our asylum system at huge cost to the taxpayer while causing terrible anxiety to the people stuck in the backlogs it has created.”
“But this shockingly ill-conceived idea will go far further in inflicting suffering while wasting huge amounts of public money.”
Another refugee advocacy group issued a withering assessment of the scheme, calling it a “grubby cash-for-people plan” that was “cowardly” and “barbaric”.
The chief executive of Refugee Action Tim Naor Hilton accused the Government of “offshoring its responsibilities onto Europe’s former colonies instead of doing our fair share to help some of the most vulnerable people on the planet”.
He added that the UK should have learnt from “Australia’s horrific experiment” of sending refugees “thousands of miles away” to camps where they experienced “rampant abuse” as well as “rape, murder and suicide”.
“This grubby cash-for-people plan would be a cowardly, barbaric and inhumane way to treat people fleeing persecution and war,” Mr Naor Hilton said.
“Ministers seem too keen to ignore the reality that most people who cross the Channel in flimsy boats are refugees from countries where persecution and war are rife and who just want to live in safety.”
Detention Action said that the men sent to Rwanda would “likely face indefinite detention under a government notorious for violent persecution of dissent”.
The advocacy group added: “At the same time, the UK currently gives asylum to Rwandan refugees fleeing political persecution.”
🇬🇧🇷🇼 In Kigali, Rwanda, ahead of a significant moment for the New Plan for Immigration.
Prime Minister @BorisJohnson will set out the full detail tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/HxbZlFv9g2— Priti Patel (@pritipatel) April 13, 2022
Britain's prime minister is set to argue in a speech on Thursday that action is needed to combat the “vile people smugglers” turning the ocean into a “watery graveyard”.
Ms Patel is then expected to set out further details of a “migration and economic development partnership” with Rwanda, during a visit to the capital of Kigali.
It is thought the asylum seekers will be encouraged to relocate and rebuild their lives in Rwanda, rather than the UK, with more information on how the arrangement will work anticipated in the coming days.
Mr Johnson will say that the number of people making the perilous crossing of the Channel could reach 1,000 a day within weeks, after around 600 arrived on Wednesday.
“I accept that these people – whether 600 or one thousand – are in search of a better life; the opportunities that the United Kingdom provides and the hope of a fresh start,” he is expected to say.
“But it is these hopes – these dreams – that have been exploited. These vile people smugglers are abusing the vulnerable and turning the Channel into a watery graveyard, with men, women and children drowning in unseaworthy boats and suffocating in refrigerated lorries.”
Mr Johnson will argue that the “long-term plan for asylum in this country” will be “world-leading” and will settle thousands of people every year through safe routes.
While not anticipated to be an easy task or without challenges, officials and ministers are said to believe the plan will allow the UK to better support those fleeing oppression, persecution and tyranny through safe and legal routes while also controlling the border.
But British Red Cross executive director Zoe Abrams said the humanitarian network was “profoundly concerned” about the plans to “send traumatised people halfway round the world to Rwanda”.
“The financial and human cost will be considerable; evidence from where offshoring has been implemented elsewhere shows it leads to profound human suffering, plus the bill that taxpayers will be asked to foot is likely to be huge,” she added.
Enver Solomon, chief executive of the UK's Refugee Council, urged the UK government to “immediately rethink its plans”.
“We are appalled by the Government’s cruel and nasty decision to send those seeking sanctuary in our country to Rwanda,” he said.
“Offshoring the UK’s asylum system will do absolutely nothing to address the reasons why people take perilous journeys to find safety in the UK.
“It will do little to deter them from coming to this country, but only lead to more human suffering and chaos – at a huge expense of an estimated £1.4 billion a year.”
But the UK's Home Office questioned the figure, with a source saying it was “ludicrous to suggest costs would be more than the current system”.
Britain's shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for processing is “unworkable, unethical and extortionate”.
The expected deal with Rwanda comes after other locations touted – including Ascension Island, Albania and Gibraltar – were rejected, at times angrily by the nations suggested.
House of Lord Peers could mount fresh resistance to the measure, having already inflicted a series of defeats to the UK government’s Nationality and Borders Bill.
The legislation is currently in a tussle between the House of Commons and the Lords after peers defeated ministers, including with a demand that offshore asylum claims should be subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament.
