LONDON – Britain’s Conservative majority in Parliament has ended a battle that critics have decried as an expensive, inhumane and impractical way to deal with migrants, sending asylum seekers to Rwanda. passed a controversial plan to deport people.
British MPs on Monday night gained support for a bill aimed at meeting one of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s legislative priorities: “stopping ships”. Specifically, the small inflatable dinghies and kayaks were filled with the thousands of migrants and asylum seekers who cross the English Channel from France each year.
Opponents pointed out that the plan could cost more per person than a three-year stay at The Ritz. It may be inconsistent with international human rights law. Experts say that may not be an effective policy.
The bill had already passed the House of Commons last year, but has been held up in the House of Lords, the unelected second chamber of the British parliament, whose members are tasked with scrutinizing the bill’s passage. Members of the House of Lords and many Opposition MPs were concerned that the policy would open up opportunities for abuse to migrants and asylum seekers, and also questioned its legality.
A “post-truth” bill?
Labor MP Stephen Kinnock called the bill a “post-truth” bill because it describes Rwanda as a safe country for asylum seekers, contrary to the opinion of courts and humanitarian groups.
Political tensions over illegal and authorized immigration are prevalent around the world. The Biden administration continues to build barriers at the U.S.-Mexico border, a signature immigration policy of former President Donald Trump, as border crossings from Mexico surge. For more than a decade, Australia has sent asylum seekers to small islands in the Pacific Ocean to process their claims. European countries from France to Hungary have tightened laws in recent years that allow governments to detain and deport foreigners.
wall:The human smuggler and the barriers that make him rich
British plans? Deporting migrants and asylum seekers 4,000 miles away to Rwanda in East Africa. What the UK policy is, how it works, how much it costs and what supporters and critics are saying about it.
‘Stop the boats’: What is Britain’s Rwandan asylum plan?
Just under 300 small boats carrying migrants and asylum seekers attempted to enter the UK from France in 2018, according to independent research group Migration Watch UK.
By 2022, that number had reached nearly 46,000.
The United Nations, humanitarian groups and migration researchers say no single factor can explain the increase. Many people are fleeing war and political and economic persecution. Some come because of family ties, cultural ties, because they speak English or because they perceive the UK to be a safe and tolerant country compared to Europe and other destinations. Some studies suggest that this surge reflects a long-term increase in global displacement. And some experts, such as Hein de Haas, one of the world’s top immigration scholars, argue that global immigration levels have remained roughly unchanged at about 3% of the world’s population since World War II. are doing.
“International migration is not as common as we think,” de Hass wrote in “How Immigration Really Works: A Factual Guide to Politics’ Most Divisive Issues,” published in 2023. ing.
Under legislation passed on Monday night, for the next five years, migrants and asylum seekers seeking to enter the UK will have their claims processed in Rwanda and repatriated on specially designated government-chartered flights. . If their claims are successful, they will be allowed to return to the UK. If not, you can apply to stay in Rwanda or a third country.
“That’s very worrying”:Britain wants to send asylum seekers 4,000 miles away to Rwanda
The UK government hopes that being able to send people to Rwanda will act as a deterrent to people trying to enter the UK by sea. Intersections can be rough and dangerous. Drowning is not uncommon. They are also a constant source of political division and debate.
Like the US, the UK is due to hold elections this year, with immigration a sticking point in the electorate, suggesting that the success or failure of the Rwanda bill could determine the fate of Sunak and the Conservative Party in the next vote. Some critics do.
“The passage of this landmark bill is not just a step forward, but a fundamental shift in the global immigration equation,” Sunak said in a statement following the bill’s passage.
How much does Rwanda Asylum Plan cost?
The British government has already paid around $300 million to Rwanda, although the program has not yet begun. It is expected to cost at least $670 million over five years, but could cost more, according to the government’s spending watchdog, the Audit Office.
It is not entirely clear how many potential asylum seekers Rwanda is prepared to accept as part of the program. Rwanda has been reluctant in this regard. Although Mr Sunak claims the number is in the thousands.
Still, Britain’s spending watchdog estimates the total cost to British taxpayers per deportation will be around $2.5 million. This figure includes fees to the Rwandan government for agreeing to participate in the program, as well as the cost of flying and lodging each deportee in Rwanda for about three years, the average time limit for processing asylum claims. It is included.
Seeing this $2.5 million figure, Lord Carlyle of Bellew, a member of the British House of Lords, said during the debate on the Rwanda Bill: “I haven’t looked at the Ritz Paris website for a while…but when I saw it… “In my memory,” he quipped. According to the website, the process will harm the country, as the National Audit Office says, but in return it can lock someone up in that hotel for three years and get some money back. Thing. Is this a fair and considerate system? What is cost effective? ”
What’s causing the delay? What are critics and supporters saying?
The policy was first announced by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2022. But he has since faced a massive revolt from his party over his personal actions in attending a party and flouting his government’s lockdown guidelines during the coronavirus pandemic. I accepted and resigned.
Mr Johnson’s resignation was followed by months of other big-name ministers and legal challenges to the Rwanda bill over a myriad of conflicting allegations, including that the policy was not tough enough. That it ultimately won’t work in the long run. Or, as rights groups and think tanks such as Freedom House say, migrants and asylum seekers are forcibly returned to countries where political opposition is routinely suppressed through surveillance, intimidation, torture, and suspected assassinations of dissidents. They argued that this was a factor in illegally violating the human rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. .
Former British Prime Minister Cameron:Braverman expelled for his pro-Palestinian views
“The British government refers to people arriving via this route as ‘illegal migrants’, but this is itself open to challenge as the right to seek asylum is a human right.” said James Wilson, Detention Action Director. Charities seeking better treatment for asylum seekers previously spoke to USA TODAY.
“All asylum claims to the UK should be heard fully and fairly in the UK.”
Although Britain’s highest court appeared to agree with that assessment, ruling that Rwanda was “not a safe country”, MPs called for additional safeguards for people sent to Rwanda and for them to be subject to “refoulement”. They were forced to amend the bill to ensure they were not covered. : You have returned to the country you fled to where you may be subject to abuse.
Geoff Crisp, a migration researcher at Oxford University’s Center for Refugee Studies, said: Said The Rwanda deal is a “useful way to distract attention from the fact that legal immigration to the UK, the majority of which are from non-EU countries whose nationals are black or brown, has soared since Brexit. – Britain’s exit from the European Union in 2020, their supporters called for a reduction in immigration.
But supporters of the plan argue it will bring about meaningful change.
“Congress has an opportunity to pass legislation that will save the lives of people exploited by smuggling organizations,” Sunak spokesman Dave Pares said last week. “It is clear that we cannot continue with the status quo…The time for change is now.”
What’s next? And what do Rwandans think about it?
Still, even now that the bill has passed both houses of Congress, it’s not entirely clear when the first flights to Rwanda carrying migrants and asylum seekers will actually depart, Sunak said at a press conference on Monday. “It will arrive within 10 days,” he said. It’s 12 weeks. ”
In a statement following the bill’s passage, Mr Sunak said: “Our focus now is on getting planes into the air and we are confident that nothing will stop us from achieving that and saving lives.”
Still, before the bill can officially become law, it will need Royal Assent, in which British monarch Charles III approves new legislation, which is largely a formality.
A memo leaked to the British press said the government was holding similar talks with countries including Botswana, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast and Armenia over asylum processing programmes. It is unclear whether this represents a possible Rwandan backup plan or an extension of it.
At least one British humanitarian organization that works with migrants and asylum seekers and was instrumental in blocking the program through the courts last year said it was considering new legal challenge options. The Care4Calais website states: “Nobody goes to Rwanda.”
In Rwanda, opposition politician Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza said Britain’s asylum bill was not suitable for a poor country like hers, where the government is struggling to meet the basic needs of most of its citizens. said. He said Rwanda was already experiencing an influx of refugees from neighboring countries such as Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was unable to adequately respond.
Umuhoza said the recent announcement by Rwanda’s flag carrier Rwanda Air to refuse to fly asylum seekers from the UK into its program, saying it could damage Rwanda’s image abroad, said it reflects how many people feel about this idea.
He said migrants and asylum seekers sent to Rwanda under the British plan would eventually find that Rwanda could not offer them any of the opportunities they had hoped for.
“They will leave, just like in the case of migrants sent from Israel to Rwanda,” she said, adding that the program ran from 2013 to 2018, when about 4,000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers went to Israel. He mentioned the program that led him to immigrate to Rwanda. Many were quickly deported to neighboring Uganda.
