British parliamentarians adopted on the night of Tuesday April 23 a bill allowing the expulsion of all asylum seekers who entered the United Kingdom illegally to Rwanda. The international community is calling for a reversal.
A political and judicial marathon lasting almost two years came to its conclusion on the night of Monday to Tuesday, April 23. Members of the British House of Commons have passed a law allowing the deportation to Rwanda of asylum seekers who entered the United Kingdom illegally.
A “historic” vote in the words of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who inherited the project from his predecessor Boris Johnson. The international community denounces this process as a whole.
• What the law says?
When it was conceptualized two years ago, this draft migration agreement between Rwanda and the United Kingdom was seen by the government as a response to the crisis, when a record number of people (45,000) had crossed clandestinely across the Channel aboard canoes. The objective: to send asylum seekers – wherever they come from – who entered the United Kingdom illegally to Rwanda.
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But what does Rwanda gain? A treaty providing for a five-year collaboration includes two counterparts. First, the British agree to welcome an unspecified number of “most vulnerable refugees” currently living in Rwanda.
Then, this agreement is conditioned according to the Guardian the payment of an “economic transformation and integration fund” of 120 million pounds sterling (nearly 140 million euros), to which are added an additional 20,000 to 30,000 pounds (between 23,000 and 34,000 euros) per person for the flight to Rwanda and the first three months of accommodation there. According to The worldthe final and updated agreement concerns a total envelope of 500 million pounds (more than 581 million euros).
However, the number of people who could be involved in this agreement has not been specified. The British government says it has opened 2,200 pre-trial detention places to manage disputes. In July 2022, Rwanda assured that it would ultimately only be able to accommodate… Only 200 people. However, he promised to quickly increase its capacity, as explained The Standard.
• How will the expulsions take place?
On Monday, a few hours before the adoption of the bill, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak assured that as soon as the law was passed, the authorities would be ready to implement it quickly. According to him, the government is “ready” to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda within 10 to 12 weeks, once the law is adopted.
“We are ready”, “these flights will take off, whatever happens”, insisted the Prime Minister in the morning during a press conference.
The government has already mobilized several hundred staff, including judges, to quickly process possible appeals from illegal migrants, who will at the same time be placed in pre-trial detention.
“Charter planes” have been reserved, the Prime Minister said, while according to British media the administration is struggling to convince airlines to contribute to the expulsions.
“No foreign court will prevent us from taking off the planes,” insisted Rishi Sunak, repeating the mantra of the conservatives since the blocking of the first expulsions to Rwanda by European justice.
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• Political opposition, legal appeals… Why did the project remain fallow for two years?
Rishi Sunak inherits a hobby horse that was not his. The vote is the result of a passing of the torch through three conservative heads of government, a path strewn with political and legal pitfalls.
On a legal level, the law overrides a decision of the Supreme Court which, on November 15, 2023, judged the agreement with Rwanda “illegal”. The reason: the safety of asylum seekers was not guaranteed there. However, the law now prevents judges from ruling on the security of Rwanda, and therefore prevents expulsions from being questioned.
On the political level, other different roadblocks have delayed the implementation of this law, namely, a “ping-pong” between the upper house and the lower house. The Lords, the body whose representatives are not elected, has multiplied amendments to block the text as it stands.
One of these was to prevent Afghan people who had served in the British army from also being covered by the deal. Apart from a verbal agreement, the game ultimately did not end in their favor. The conservative camp has been particularly inflexible, with its sights set on the future legislative election.
• What does the international community think?
International calls are growing for the United Kingdom to stop deportations. The UN asked London to “reconsider its plan”, denouncing “increasingly restrictive” British laws which had “eroded access to refugee protection” over the past two years.
The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on the government to “instead take practical measures to combat irregular flows of refugees and migrants, on the basis of international cooperation and respect for international law of human rights”, according to a statement cited by Agence France presse.
The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, for his part described this law as an “attack on the independence of the judiciary”. The Council of Europe brings together 46 members, including the United Kingdom, which is the depositary of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was from this that in June 2022 a first flight to Rwanda was blocked by the European Court of Human Rights;
For its part, Rwanda said it was “satisfied”, with government spokesperson Yolande Makolo adding that the authorities were “impatient to welcoming people relocated to Rwanda”.