The Government is set to secure a deal which would see asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats being flown to Rwanda for processing. Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to sign the multimillion-pound agreement on Thursday during a visit to the East African nation.
It would mean that some people seeking sanctuary in the UK would be sent more than 4,000 miles away while their claims are assessed “offshore”. It would include those who make the crossing by means deemed “illegal” by the Government.
Under a trial scheme an initial £120 million is expected to be given to the Rwandan government. It’s been 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”.
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Speaking on Thursday, the Prime Minister said the plans would enable the UK to “take back control of illegal immigration” and to stop gangs from exploiting the current system. He said: “It is a plan that will ensure the UK has a world-leading asylum offer, providing generous protection to those directly fleeing the worst of humanity by settling thousands of people every year through safe and legal routes.”
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 Opposition as well as refugee advocates, including the Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, who told the BBC it would not work. He said:“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 be tackled and I don’t think this is the way to do it.”
Labour MP for Manchester Central Lucy Powell said the Government’s announcement on asylum seekers is “less about dealing with small boats and more about dealing with the Prime Minister’s own sinking boat” as a distraction amid the partygate scandal.
The shadow cabinet minister, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is quite obviously a pretty desperate attempt by the Prime Minister to distract from his law-breaking and I don’t think there would be many of your listeners that wouldn’t take it with a large dose of scepticism.
“It’s a plan that might sound good in a focus group and would certainly grab the headlines because it’s very controversial and contestable – but in reality, it is unworkable, expensive, and unethical.”
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 to the PA news agency, 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 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.”
The Prime Minister argued in a speech on Thursday at an airport in Kent that action is needed to combat the “vile people smugglers” turning the ocean into a “watery graveyard”. Mr Johnson said that from Thursday (April 14) the Royal Navy will take over responsibility for tackling people crossing the English Channel.
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 said 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. He criticised the “rank unfairness” of the current asylum system, which he claimed is being exploited by men entering via small boat crossings at the expense of women and children.
“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 said.
“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 argued 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. He said:“Our compassion may be infinite but our capacity to help people is not. We can’t ask the British taxpayer to write a blank cheque to cover the costs of anyone who might want to come and live here.
“Uncontrolled immigration creates unmanageable demands on our NHS and on our welfare state, it overstretches our local schools, our housing and public transport and creates unsustainable pressure to build on precious green spaces.
“Nor is it fair on those who are seeking to come here legally if others can bypass the system. It’s a striking fact that around seven out of 10 of those arriving in small boats last year were men under 40 paying people smugglers to queue jump and taking up our capacity to help genuine women and child refugees.
“This is particularly perverse as those attempting crossings are not directly fleeing imminent peril, as is the intended purpose of the asylum system. They pass through manifestly safe countries including many in Europe where they could and should claim asylum.
“It’s this rank unfairness of a system that can be exploited by gangs which risks eroding public support for the whole concept of asylum.”
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.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the Government’s plans 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.
Peers could mount fresh resistance to the measure, having already inflicted a series of defeats to the Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill.
The legislation is currently in a tussle between the 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.
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