Why is the Rwanda deportation bill passed by UK parliament controversial?

The United Kingdom Parliament, on Monday, passed the controversial Rwanda deportation bill, paving the way for it to become a law. The green light to the bill came after months of opposition in the Parliament, courts, and civil society circles. Concern for asylum seekers’ human rights had been the primary cause of resistance to the bill.

What does the bill mean for asylum seekers? What is the controversy? Why was Rwanda chosen? We explain.

What is the bill about?

The bill was first introduced by former PM Boris Johnson in 2022.

Per its provisions, people who arrived in Britain illegally after 1 January, 2022 could be sent to Rwanda, roughly 6,400 kilometres away from the shores of the UK.

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Once enforced as a law, will allow Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government to send some asylum seekers to the East African nation for their claims to be processed there under a five-year agreement.

If the applicants are successful, they will be granted refugee status and allowed to stay in Rwanda. Otherwise, they could either apply to settle in Rwanda on different grounds or seek asylum in another “safe third country”.

No asylum seeker would be able to apply to return to the UK.

The UK will pay Rwanda a substantial amount as part of the deal. According to the National Audit Office, a public spending watchdog, it will cost the UK roughly $665 million (£540 million) to deport the first 300 asylum seekers.

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Why was the bill introduced?

The surge in migrants in the UK prompted the government to bring in this bill.

In 2019, the Conservative Party came to power. Among its major promises was to reduce net migration. In 2020, Brexit happened. Although Britain’s departure from the European Union bestowed upon the government more control over who can enter the country, the immigration pressure did not ease.

Johnson’s administration struggled to contain the growing numbers of migrants arriving via unofficial routes. In fact, in 2022, net migration soared to a record high of 745,000. The majority of these people came from non-EU countries. Most of these people are also legal migrants.

Against this backdrop, the Conservative government, under Johnson, introduced the Rwanda asylum plan. Incumbent Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, has aggressively pushed for the bill with his “Stop The Boats” campaign. He has also introduced measures to reduce legal migrations, promising to cut it down to 300,000.

Will the bill really ease the immigration pressure?

According to Bloomberg, Rwanda is only going to take a tiny fraction of the people illegally arriving in the UK. Initially, it will only be able to house 200 migrants. That number is expected to rise, but not exponentially.

However, the Conservative proponents of the bill have argued that the UK government argues the real value would be in deterrence. Some asylum seekers, who travel to the UK illegally in dangerous small boats from France, would be more likely to stay ther if they feared there was a chance of being rerouted to Africa.

According to Reuters, in 2023, over 29,000 people arrived in the UK via such boats, often arranged by criminal gangs. In 2022, a record 45,775 migrants arrived this way. Until April 10 this year, more than 5,500 people coming in boats had been detected. This trend is similar rate to 2022.

Why is the bill so controversial?

The bill has been heavily criticised by lawmakers and activists on human rights grounds.

In June 2022, the first deportation flight was blocked by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), saying British judges had not ruled on the plan.

Over a year later, in November 2023, a bench of the UK Supreme Court unanimously upheld a court of appeal ruling that the Rwanda policy was unlawful. They said that no proper assessment of whether Rwanda is safe had been conducted. The court also found that there are substantial grounds to believe that the deported refugees would be at risk in Rwanda. There were realistic odds of asylum seekers’ claims in Rwanda being wrongly assessed, or of them being returned to their country of origin, where they could face persecution.

To bypass this, the UK government amended the treaty. The administration said that the new treaty ensures that people who are relocated to Rwanda are not at risk of being returned to a country where their lives or freedom would be risked.

The very next day, the government introduced the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) bill. The bill declared Rwanda a safe country. This, the government acknowledged, may not be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

David McNeill, Director of Public Affairs for The Law Society, an independent professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, said the Safety of Rwanda Act is a “truly terrible piece of law”. He told Firstpost that the Act largely strips legal protections from asylum claimants “simply on the basis of their route of arrival to the UK.”

McNeill further explained that there are limited “legal routes” available for refugees such as those for Hong Kong Chinese, Ukrainian refugees and some limited and ineffective schemes for Afghani refugees. He said “…most refugees will be stripped of their rights under UK asylum law, international agreements and legal protections against modern slavery. This is regardless of the legitimacy of their application. They can indeed be legitimate refugees and legitimate victims of people trafficking.”

McNeill also told Firstpost that the Act is an affront the UK constitution and the separation of powers between government and the judiciary. “It negates a finding of fact of the UK Supreme Court, stating in law that Rwanda is ‘safe’ regardless of evidence that Rwanda is not safe.”

Why the focus on Rwanda?

Why did the UK government go so far as to bring a legislation deeming Rwanda as a “safe” country? Why send people specifically to Rwanda?

The simple reason is that nobody else wants this job. Under PM Johnson, the UK considered striking deals with Ghana, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria and Morocco. That did not pan out.

Meanwhile, Rwanda was eager to participate. The country, under President Paul Kagame, is seeking to showcase its progress in recovering from both civil war and colonial rule by Belgium. Kagame sees this as an opportunity to present himself as a capable leader on the global stage. He can project his administration to be one that can help the West in resolving a complicated political issue, Bloomberg had previously reported.

For the UK, there were precedents of such deals by Rwanda with Israel and Denmark. However, Israel had to shut down that program after with the Israeli Supreme Court declared it unlawful because Rwanda had not complied with assurances it had given.

Can the government be legally challenged?

There is a rather restricted route to challenging the government. McNeill said that the scope is limited to people “who face ‘particular individual circumstances’ which would give rise to ‘a real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm’. This is a very high bar and few would meet that test.”

He also said that the risk of ‘refoulement’ is not point that can be challenged. For the unversed, refoulement is a principle in law that refers to the forcible return of asylum seekers or refugees to a nation where they are liable to persecution.

McNeill did point out that the option of mounting a legal challenge at the ECHR to the Strasbourg court. However, he noted that “the Act allows the UK government to disregard its findings.”

Regardless, The Law Society is expecting some challenges.

Lastly, what about the cost?

The deal with be extremely costly for the UK. Even if the UK sends nobody to Rwanda, Sunak has signed up to pay £370 million of taxpayers’ money over the course of five years.

So far, even though no deportations have taken place, Britain has already paid Rwanda more than $304 million.

Plus, for settling a tiny fraction of the immigrants- roughly 300 refugees, it would cost more than 600 million pounds.

The United Kingdom is currently spending over 3 billion pounds annually to process asylum applications. The cost of accommodating migrants who are awaiting a decision in hotels and other accommodation is about 8 million pounds every day.

Current figures indicate that there are still approximately 100,000 asylum applications that have yet to be decided.

With inputs from agencies