The British Home Secretary is in Rwanda to sign an agreement that would see some of the U.K’s asylum procedures moved to the African country.
Single men who pay people smugglers to get them into the U.K on small boats will be transported to Rwanda to have their asylum requests evaluated. The scheme has been slammed by charities as inhumane.
Thousands of individuals, mostly from France, have started arriving in southern England, putting pressure on the UK government to act.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, has described her presence in Kigali as an “important moment for the new immigration programme.”
Prime Minister Boris Johnson will lay out the full facts of the arrangement on Thursday, she tweeted.
On Wednesday, Patel arrived in the Central African country after signing a “migration and economic development partnership.”
The idea comes as Johnson prepares to unveil new proposals on Thursday to disrupt people-smuggling gangs’ business models and expand UK operations in the Channel.
The agreement with Rwanda, which is expected to cost an initial £120 million, comes after Patel’s three-year commitment to outsource refugee processing to third countries and his failure to reach agreements with Albania and Ghana.
According to reports, persons seeking refuge in the UK may be airlifted to a camp in Rwanda under the terms of the agreement, which Labour has branded “unworkable and unethical.”
Migrants will reportedly have their asylum claims processed in the east African country and be encouraged to settle there.
The Refugee Council’s chief executive, Enver Solomon, responded to the government’s planned crackdown by saying that the government sought to criminalise people for taking the wrong way to safety by arriving in the UK.
“The government is choosing control and punishment above compassion despite the fact its own data shows that two thirds of men, women and children arriving in small boats come from countries where war and persecution has forced them from their homes.
“We urge this government to immediately rethink its plans which are in such stark contrast to what every Conservative prime minister since Churchill has sought to do by providing a fair hearing on British soil for those who claim asylum,” he said.
