The British authorities continue to insist that migrants seeking asylum in Britain go to Rwanda to find asylum there.
The latest option says British lawyers will work in Rwandan courts to allay British concerns about how the system works in Rwanda. Britain’s Supreme Court has already ruled that the government’s previous plan to send asylum seekers to the East African country was illegal. But that hasn’t stopped some politicians from trying to come up with a new way of implementing Rwanda’s plan.
Home Secretary James Cleverly is set to visit Rwanda this week to sign an agreement under which Britain will give Rwanda an extra 15 million euros to boost its capacity to process asylum claims, according to a Sunday Times report.
Rwanda had previously received 140 million euros from Britain for an asylum plan that was due to come into effect in 2020 but was blocked by legal challenges days before it was due to start.
In November, the Supreme Court again halted the plan due to human rights concerns and said there was no guarantee that Rwanda would not return asylum seekers to their home country, putting migrants at risk.
Following last month’s ruling, the British government went ahead with its Rwandan plan and said it would seek to sign a formal treaty with the African country. In recent years, Britain, like other European countries, has suffered from the problem of ever-increasing numbers of migrants arriving at its borders.
The Rwanda plan, struck in April 2022 by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson, is designed to deter asylum seekers from making the dangerous journey of about 20 miles (32 km) across the Channel from Europe in small boats or inflatable dinghies to England’s southern beaches.
Last year, a record 45,775 people were detected arriving without permission in Britain in this way. So far this year, more than 27,000 have arrived on small boats.
Under the scheme, anyone who arrived in Britain illegally after Jan. 1 last year faced deportation to Rwanda, some 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away, where their claims would be assessed.
