A Tory minister has described Rwanda's human rights record as "good" despite the UK Government slamming the African country over the issue just last year.
Simon Hart attempted to defend the government's plans to send migrants to processing centres to the East African nation when they arrive on small boats in Britain.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is expected to sign a deal during a visit later today, with people seeking sanctuary in the UK to be sent more than 4,000 miles.
Some of those who make the perilous crossing of the Channel, as well as by other means deemed "illegal" by the Government, would be sent to Rwanda while their claims are assessed "offshore".
An initial £120 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".
Sky News host Kay Burley asked the Welsh Secretary about Rwanda's human rights record.
He replied: " Rwanda is an improving economy with a good human rights record and a good record as far as migrants are concerned.
"So it would be a natural fit as far as it is concerned, Denmark are looking at a very similar scheme.
"I think it would be wrong simply to use the historical comparison as a reason to just abandon ship and just not to deal with them.
"We have to deal with this problem."
Hart's comments come after Julian Braithwaite, the Director General for Europe at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, said he was "concerned" about rights in Rwanda and that President Paul Kagame 's government should respect human rights.
He said in January last year: "We remain concerned, however, by continued restrictions to civil and political rights and media freedom.
"As a member of the Commonwealth, and future Chair-in-Office, we urge Rwanda to model Commonwealth values of democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights."
'Barbaric'
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, 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."
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," 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."
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