The Home Secretary is making plans to deport migrants to Rwanda by the summer. A Home Office source said “we are certainly working towards getting the flights off before the summer”, adding that Suella Braverman acknowledged it was dependent on the pending legal battles.
“We’re working to make this happen as soon as possible, and there is every possibility that we can move quickly if we get a good line of judgment in our favour,” she told reporters. No migrants have been relocated to the country so far after the deal was signed last April by Ms Braverman’s predecessor Priti Patel.
It comes as Ms Braverman expanded the agreement with Rwanda to incorporate all those illegally entering the UK as opposed to solely asylum seekers. And the Rwandan government says it is "ready to absorb the thousands that will come from the UK".
The addition to the deal is to be put in place to ensure illegal entrants would be detained and swiftly removed under the Illegal Migration Bill (IMB), irrespective of the claim they bring – including asylum, human rights, modern slavery or nothing at all. Speaking in Rwanda’s capital Kigali on her first official visit as Home Secretary, Ms Braverman also said the IMB as it stands “does not take us out of the ECHR (European Convention of Human Rights)”, but added: “Nothing is off the table, ultimately.”
She said there are “serious issues with the balance that’s currently being struck” with the Strasbourg courts. The IMB is due to bring forward the removal of migrants in a period of 28 days – and asked whether this would see those appealing against their relocation fly back to Britain, Ms Braverman said: “The Bill dramatically, dramatically reduces the opportunity for people to make spurious claims.”
“There will be significantly limited opportunities to challenge that,” she added.
On Saturday, Ms Braverman visited housing which is set to be used for migrants – with properties equipped with gardens, off-street parking and capacity for fibre-optic broadband. The cheapest houses on the Riverside Estate in Kigali would cost potential buyers £14,000 and are due to be offered to both asylum seekers and Rwandans.
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Migrants arriving from the UK would be housed in hostels and hotels in the short term, before moving onto long-term housing arrangements.
“I think that Rwanda is clearly ready. We saw that at the Riverside estate,” Ms Braverman said. “We’re seeing that there’s real progress, which has been made in real tangible terms.”
Yolande Makolo, spokeswoman for the Rwandan government, said she did not consider living in Rwanda a “punishment”, adding: “We’re determined to make this a success.” Ms Makolo told reporters the African nation has “always been prepared” to take the migrants, describing the country as “welcoming” to refugees.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, she said: “We don’t consider living in Rwanda punishment. Living in Rwanda is actually a good thing for us. We have built this country literally from scratch in the last 30 years or so. We’re very proud of what we’ve done here.
“We have Rwandans behind us – Rwandans are welcoming to migrants and refugees. We want to contribute to improving the global migration system, which is not fit for purpose. It’s broken. Let’s be honest, it’s not working. It’s not meant for the kind of problems we have today.”
Ms Makolo continued: “We are proud to be partnering with the UK in an innovative partnership that is seeking to address this global challenge. This is what this partnership is about. We’re in it for the right reasons. For us as Rwandans, we do not want to see young Africans dying on these dangerous journeys, dying in the desert or being buried at the bottom of the sea.”
Ms Makolo added: “We have always been prepared to receive thousands of migrants over the course of the initiative. We’ve always been ready for that.
“We are going to be ready to absorb the thousands that will come from the UK along the life of this partnership. We’re determined to make this a success.”
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