UK to sign deal to send asylum seekers to Rwanda: reports

Aveen Karim

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to unveil a new plan on Thursday to send thousands of male asylum seekers to Rwanda while their applications are processed, a move that could affect hundreds of Kurds seeking to make the perilous journey across the English Channel.  

Home Secretary Priti Patel on Wednesday said on Twitter that she was in Rwanda  “ahead of a significant for the New Plan for Immigration,” adding that Johnson would reveal the details on Thursday.

Patel is expected to sign a 120 million pounds ($158 million) agreement to send migrants to Rwanda, according to Times newspaper, adding that the funding will be raised from British taxpayer money. The publication added that Patel will sign the “migration and economic development partnership” in the Rwandan capital on Thursday.

Crossing the channel in small boats is also to be criminalized and only males will be sent as the UK Home Office perceives them to be most likely economic migrants. Asylum seekers allowed to remain in the UK while their claims are processed will be housed in stricter centers where they have to abide by strict rules or face the possibility of not being granted asylum. 

According to the Home Office, 28,526 people crossed the English Channel from France and 2021 in small boats, triple the figure from the year before.

Johnson will deliver a speech on Thursday from Kent and is expected to announce the plan while also highlighting the dangers of the crossings and the role of smugglers. Patel will then speak and announce the partnership with Rwanda.

The plan aims to "break the business model of people smuggling gangs, step-up our operations in the Channel, bring more criminals to justice and end this barbaric trade in human misery," AFP cited Johnson’s office.

The announcements are expected to spark condemnation, and calls to protest outside the Home Office building in London are circulating on social media. 

The plan will be enabled by the Nationality and Borders Bill, which has not yet been passed but parliamentary sessions on it are underway.

Johnson’s critics say he is trying to divert the public attention away from calls for his resignation for COVID-19 lockdown breaches in the so-called “Partygate” scandal. Johnson offered an apology on Wednesday after being fined for the breaches.

Johnson is also expected to warn that 600 people crossed the channel on Wednesday, and add that the number could “reach a thousand a day” in several weeks. 

Labour and the Scottish National Party, the main opposition to the ruling Conservative Party, have opposed the claims of offshoring asylum seekers. 

“It is absolutely despicable that the UK Government is pushing ahead with plans to outsource the indefinite detention and processing of asylum seekers to Rwanda,” Sophie McCann, Advocacy Officer at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) UK said in a statement.

“This government knows what the impact of this policy will be – it is knowingly and willingly subjecting refugees to horrific suffering,” McCann added.

A migrant support group launched a legal challenge against Patel’s plans to push-back dinghies in the Channel last year, arguing that it breaks British and international maritime law which states that nobody can endanger other boats at sea.

Thousands of people from Iraq and the Kurdistan Region left the country in 2021 for Europe. Young people have spoken of leaving the country in search of jobs and opportunities they feel they cannot access at home where unemployment is high and political tensions, corruption and instability leave them with little hope for their future.

A boat carrying 33 migrants from different countries, including Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, capsized in the English Channel on November 24. One of the survivors told Rudaw English at the time that the incident took place in British territorial waters.