The government’s announcement that it plans to send asylum seekers to the UK illegally has outraged many politicians and charities to the Church of England.
On Tuesday, Labor MP Yvette Cooper said the plans were an “impossible and desperate” attempt by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to divert attention from the party, and Theresa May said she did not support the policy on the grounds of “legality, practicality and efficiency”.
The Church of England has joined the criticism, with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby describing the plan as “contrary to the nature of God”.
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2:08 Theresa May and Priti Patel clash over government plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda
The United Kingdom is reported to be paying Rwanda £ 120 million and the refugees could be sent to East Africa within weeks.
The government defended the policy, with Ms. Patel saying in the municipality that the current spreading system was “unfair” and overburdened, with local authorities sharing the burden “disproportionately”. Mr Johnson, meanwhile, said it was “the morally right thing to do”.
The policy has received a major response, but it is not revolutionary, with Denmark, Israel and Australia implementing similar mandates in recent years.
Sky News looks at why the plan for Rwanda has been criticized, what the East African country is getting from the deal with the United Kingdom, and how other countries have implemented similar plans.
The human rights record in Rwanda is in question
The plan for Rwanda was pushed through by Ms. Patel, despite concerns from her top government official, but last July the United Kingdom criticized Rwanda for failing to investigate human rights abuses.
The UK’s international ambassador for human rights, Rita French, expressed “regret” that Rwanda did not “conduct transparent, credible and independent investigations into allegations of human rights violations, including deaths in custody and torture”.
Image: A refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo sits with her belongings in the Kiziba refugee camp in Karongi County, Rwanda
According to a report by the American non-profit organization Freedom House for 2020: “Young Congolese and Burundian refugees are vulnerable to sexual exploitation and forced recruitment into armed groups associated with the Rwandan security forces.”
Dr Tanya Kaiser, a senior lecturer in forced migration research at SOAS University of London, told Sky News: “The Rwandan government has a fragile reputation and they do not have many ways to earn points of international trust.
“UNHCR is very frank about the fact that refugees have struggled to exercise their rights in Rwanda.”
Financial and reputational gains for the Rwandan government
The financial benefits are an obvious attraction for Rwanda.
The reported costs of the UK scheme would, in theory, provide a major boost to its economy, but it is more tempting to improve its international reputation.
According to Amnesty International’s director of refugee and migrant rights in the United Kingdom, Steve Valdes-Symonds, this policy will help improve Rwanda’s global status.
“Rwanda has a growing economy and welcomes money. It also sees it in terms of status and respect. It is still recovering from the genocide and its extremely grim involvement in the Congo,” he told Sky News.
“You have a system in which Rwanda has all the power in relations and the United Kingdom will continue to pay over the nose in the hope that it will somehow lead to some result that politicians here will welcome.”
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Dr Kaiser said: “I have a very clever doctoral student who is from Rwanda who said that there was a lot of laughter about the amount of money that Rwanda receives as payment for this deal.
“Politicians and journalists are speculating on what is going on behind the scenes, which is sweetening the money. It’s also about local unions and political levers.”
Australia’s use of offshore detention centers
Australia was one of the first countries to use offshore detention centers in 2001, when it announced that refugees would be sent to centers in Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Nauru.
The Pacific decision was approved in 2013 to deny resettlement visas to all refugees arriving by boat.
Image: Australia has imposed strict immigration controls
Nauru still houses 112 refugees, but centers on the island of Manus in Papua New Guinea, where 120 were detained, were closed after the country’s Supreme Court ruled the centers were “illegal”.
The refugees were either transferred to Nauru or remained in Papua New Guinea to begin the process of becoming permanent citizens.
Human rights groups have criticized the conditions in the centers, where 13 people have died from violence, carelessness or suicide.
Australia says its offshore policy means that deaths at sea have been prevented and the government estimates that it will spend 260 million Australian dollars (148.4 million British pounds) on offshore processing by 2023.
Image: There were protests against offshore centers in Australia Image: Australians protested against the treatment of refugees
A three-year deal was announced in March to send 450 Australian refugees to resettlement centers in New Zealand.
Dr Kaiser said the Australian government would probably argue that the scheme “meets the need at the time and no longer needs to exist in the same way”.
“The reason they did it was 150% political, it was about sending a political message in a context where the big parties were competing with each other to show their toughness on asylum and immigration,” she said.
Image: Refugees held in Nauru as part of Australia’s offshore immigration policy. Photo: AP
Israel’s voluntary deportation program
Israel is seeing a growing number of refugees arriving from Sudan and Eritrea.
The government of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu introduced a “voluntary” policy in 2015, in which an unnamed country – according to reports from Uganda and Rwanda – accepts refugees.
Image: A Palestinian family walks past a section of the disputed Israeli barrier in the West Bank Shuafat refugee camp near Jerusalem
The migrants were given the choice to return to their country, accept a £ 2,700 payment and a plane ticket to East Africa, or be jailed if they remained in Israel.
By 2018, almost 30% of illegal immigrants have left Israel.
The Voluntary Deportation Program has been heavily criticized for not guaranteeing the migrant’s legal status or protection against further deportation, with nearly 20,000 people protesting against it in Tel Aviv in March 2018.
A later plan to forcibly deport refugees was presented in 2018, but failed following a Supreme Court ruling.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry did not respond to Sky News’s request for comment.
Danish policy on “zero” refugees
As part of its 2019 election mandate, Denmark’s ruling Social Democratic Party said its main policy was to process asylum applications outside the European Union.
The government has a “zero” refugee policy and began revoking Syrian refugees’ residence permits last year.
Image: Denmark is pursuing a policy of “zero refugees”.
Legislation was passed in June to allow refugees to be sent to non-EU countries for processing, and Denmark has held talks with countries inside and outside the EU on a potential deal, including Tunisia and Ethiopia.
Last year, Danish Immigration Minister Matthias Tesfaye signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with Rwanda, leading to speculation that a processing facility would be opened in East Africa.
The Danish government has agreed to provide funding for each asylum system.
A report published in January by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs registered almost five million asylum applications between 2015 and 2020, with 52% rejected.
It cost the Danish government € 40,300 (£ 33,523) to accommodate one rejected asylum seeker at a return center, with € 34 million (£ 28.3 million) to accommodate rejected refugees.
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Mr Tesfaye said on Wednesday that Denmark was in talks with Rwanda to transfer asylum seekers to East Africa and that the partnership would be discussed in parliament next Thursday.
He said the current system was “unsustainable” and more than 22,000 people had died trying to cross the Mediterranean, adding that the agreement with the United Kingdom was a “good step forward”.
“We are in dialogue with Rwanda and we have good cooperation based on a broad partnership, but we do not have an agreement on the transfer of asylum seekers,” he added.
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