UK’s Rwanda deportation plan approved by Parliament: NPR

LONDON – More than two years after it was introduced, the British government’s controversial plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is set to become law.

The unelected House of Lords cleared the way for the bill to become law after scrapping the last of the suggested amendments, The Associated Press reported.

Even before his signature policy was passed, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stood at a lectern emblazoned with the slogan “stop the boats” on Monday, a reference to one of his key election goals. campaign promises. At a press conference, he told reporters that he would stop at nothing to pass the legislation, aimed at deterring people without visas from crossing the English Channel from France to England.

“No ifs or buts. These flights are going to Rwanda,” Sunak said. saying.

The plan is to send some of the people the government says are arriving in the UK illegally to Rwanda, where local authorities would process their asylum claims.

The United Kingdom signed a deal with Rwanda in April 2022, in which Rwanda agreed to process and settle asylum seekers initially arriving in Britain.

UK government says threat of being deported to Rwanda will increase deter immigrants the dangerous journey across the English Channel. recorded more than 4,600 immigrants crossing the English Channel from January to March, surpassing the previous total for that period.

Critics and lawmakers say there is no evidence the plan would work as a deterrent.

Sunak, who is behind in the surveys ahead of elections scheduled for this fall, he is staking his Conservative Party’s re-election campaign on this plan, despite several legal challenges from leading British and European courts. In one of his last moves, last year, Sunak presented “emergency“legislation to include in British law that Rwanda is a safe country, in a bid to save the plan after it was struck down by the UK Supreme Court.

No flights deporting migrants have left London for Rwanda in the two years since then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson first announced the plan. In June 2022, a plane was grounded by a last-minute ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, which intervened to stop the deportation of one of the asylum seekers on the flight.

This gave grounds for the remaining six people on the flight to bring legal appeals to the London courts. Last year, NPR spoke with an asylum seeker from Iran, who was on that grounded plane.

“They treated us like criminals and murderers. Every time they knock on the door, I think the authorities come to escort us back to that plane,” the man, who is now temporarily living in a hotel, told NPR.

The plan has been extensively developed. criticism of human rights groups and legislators from different parties, including some in Sunak’s own party, which they say is incompatible with the UK’s responsibilities under international human rights law. Many also say it is no coincidence that Sunak is pushing this through Parliament just months before the planned election.

“A lot of this is performative cruelty,” says Daniel Merriman, a lawyer who has represented some of the asylum seekers scheduled for deportation to Rwanda in the past. “The elephant in the room in the next election.”

Opinion polls show that the British public is largely divided on the idea of ​​deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

“In principle, people are really divided down the middle,” says Sunder Katwala, director of British future, a nonpartisan think tank that researches public attitudes. “On the question of whether this is going to happen, whether it is going to work and whether it will be profitable, there is a majority that is already very skeptical about this.”

The British government has already paid Rwanda Almost 300 million dollars to host asylum seekers. Britain doesn’t want to.

Although Sunak’s Conservatives largely support the move to Rwanda, some hardliners in his party say the latest version of the legislation, which has been rewritten several times, is not strict enough. Suella Braverman, a former interior minister who spearheaded the Rwanda plan when she was in office, said the last The version had “fatal flaws”, with “too many loopholes” that would not stop the crossings.

While Sunak may have cleared one hurdle this week, experts say he can expect others.

“Your real headaches could be ahead. Now you have to prove whether it works or not,” says Katwala.

One challenge can be getting an airline agree to participate. On Monday, experts from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights aviation authorities warned against facilitating what he called “illegal expulsions” of asylum seekers to Rwanda, saying they risk violating international human rights laws.