British Home Secretary James Cleverly signed a new treaty with Rwanda on Tuesday to override last month’s Supreme Court decision to block the government’s controversial policy of sending asylum seekers to the East African country.
Cleverly said the agreement signed with Rwanda Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta would “address all the issues” raised by the U.K. Supreme Court, adding that there was no “credible” reason to bar the deportation flights despite the court’s noting that asylum-seekers faced “a real risk of ill-treatment.”
Britain’s plan, first announced by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson in April 2022, will see thousands of asylum seekers who arrived in the country without permission deported back to their home country. In return, Rwanda received an initial payment of 140 million pounds ($180 million), with more to follow. That year, 45,000 people reached the U.K. in small boats. In the year ending June 2023, there were 52,530 irregular migrants (illegal immigrants) detected entering the U.K., up 17% from the year ending June 2022.
Eighty-five percent of which, arrived via small boats.
The U.K. government is also drafting emergency legislation to declare Rwanda a safe country.
Human rights groups have widely criticized the plan. Biruta says Rwanda has been villanized “by international organizations, by the media, by courts.”
“It is not helpful for all of us to criticize a country like Rwanda which is contributing to a solution while we are not even addressing the root causes … which produce those refugees,” he told a press conference in Kigali.
“I really hope that we can now move quickly,” Cleverly added.
Left: Cleverly, "Rwanda takes their duty to the humane and professional treatment of refugees incredibly seriously"
— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) December 5, 2023
Right: Rwanda, "We don't agree with the decision of the UK's Supreme Court, because it's based on dishonesty of the UNHCR" pic.twitter.com/XZFRBu2EVz
