'Very Paradoxical': Inside the Controversy of Britain's Rwanda Asylum Plan
© AP Photo / Matt Dunham
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The UK's plan to send some asylum seekers, who arrive in the UK by crossing the English Channel, to Rwanda for processing has sparked a lot of debate and criticism. The plan, first announced in April 2022, has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges.
The United Kingdom's scheme to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, in East Africa, has raised questions about its impact on Rwanda as well as on the European country's immigration policy.
Dr. Roslyn Fuller, director of the non-profit think tank Solonian Democracy Institute and author of the book Beasts and Gods: How Democracy Changed Its Meaning and Lost Its Purpose, told Sputnik Africa in an interview that the British government's efforts to "tightly control immigration" stem from the fact that the issue of illegal migration has been a "confusing" issue for many developed countries over the past decade.
"It is no secret that there have been a lot of confusion around migration policies in a lot of Western countries over the last decade or so, with some governments taking a kind of open border stance on this, other governments wanting to tightly control immigration, still others taking a middle path," she said. "It's been very confusing. The idea of who should have refugee status has, at least in the media, wandered all over the place."
Fuller noted that while criticism of the West's exploitative use of the African continent for its own interests, such as military training, mining resources, and dumping sites for toxic electronic waste, is "certainly valid," the possible use of Rwandan soil to solve the migration crisis in the UK is a more complicated issue.
"[The] criticisms are certainly valid around using Africa as a site for a lot of military training, mining resources in exploitative ways. Those are things that myself and others have spent a lot of time complaining about in the past," Fuller stated.
Although acknowledging that sending asylum seekers from a wealthy European country to a developing African country is "very paradoxical," Dr. Fuller explained that the UK’s plan is a deterrence policy, which is not intended to send large numbers of people to Rwanda but to make it "serious and credible" that the British government will do it and therefore to discourage people from coming to the UK.
The expert on democracy, human rights, and international law added that UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Rwanda-focused anti-migration plan "can be very positive" for the East African country "if it's managed well."
A similar view was expressed by Dr. Emmanuel Mushimiyimana, a political science lecturer at the University of Rwanda's School of Governance, Development, and Society. While welcoming the idea of sharing "global responsibilities" between the UK and his country on issues such as immigration, the Rwandan academic admitted that it's unclear whether the European country would use Rwanda's deportation plan as a means of responsibility to protect asylum seekers.
"No problem that the UK can send asylum seekers to Rwanda," Dr. Mushimiyimana told Sputnik Africa. "The matter is only to know whether it is in the framework of rejecting responsibility to protect asylum seekers or not. That we do not know and we cannot actually know."
7 December 2023, 13:14
Fuller questioned the possible impact of the program on the health, education, and social systems of Rwanda, which may not be able to cope with a large influx of people due to poor management.
"If even very wealthy countries are having trouble coping with this, how are historically less wealthy countries with fewer resources going to cope with that? We don't know," she asked. "People usually don't make the journey all the way to Europe or all the way to the UK in order to turn around and go back to Rwanda or go back to their country of origin."
Mushimiyimana, for his part, predicted that Rwanda would be able to accommodate the refugees sent by the UK, noting that the East African nation has experience hosting refugees from neighboring countries such as Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
"The country has different refugees from Burundi and DRC, and they have adapted to economic livelihood as normal citizens. They do farming, transportation, construction, they can get driving permits, join schools and join industry. Other refugees from Syria, Afghanistan or elsewhere can equally enjoy that right," he said.
Dr. Fuller argued that the Rwanda deportation plan "has a lot to do" with Britain's exit from the European Union (EU), commonly known as Brexit. According to the political expert, the British government wants to tell its European partners that the kingdom is capable of controlling its borders.
6 December 2023, 08:59
"This has a lot to do with Brexit and has a lot to do with them saying we have said in Brexit that we're going to control our borders. So we remain open to people who want to apply for a visa and come to the UK, for example. We don't want people illegally coming into the UK," she told Sputnik Africa.
The Canadian-Irish author said that there is a desire and a need for immigration, as Western countries have a declining birthrate and a demand for low-wage labor and skilled workers. However, there is also an unwillingness to create the services and infrastructure that would support the integration of immigrants. The expert assumed that the UK and other European countries do not know where they are on immigration and what they hope to achieve with their immigration policy.
"We're seeing a desire for an influx of people without creating the infrastructure to deal with that and then confused political messaging just all the way around on what is behind our immigration policy, what do we hope to achieve?" Dr. Fuller questioned. "We're working at cross-purposes to ourselves. And I don't think anyone really fully understands where this is going to end."
30 November 2023, 10:15
For his part, commenting on British immigration policy, Dr. Mushimiyimana suggested that there should be "new thinking" on how to deal with the immigration crisis in developed countries, including involving African governments to help address the problem.
"There should be new thinking which is positive on how to decrease poverty and inequality in addressing global issues," the Rwandan said. "Therefore, I do not find any problem if African countries can respond and address the issues, however, European countries could equally contribute to the socio-economic problem of Africa, not only send refugees. It has to be done simultaneously."
The British government has made immigration policies one of its priorities since leaving the European Union in 2020. In April 2022, London and Kigali signed an agreement to send some of the undocumented migrants arriving in the UK by sea to Rwanda for case processing and possible resettlement. The Rwanda-focused migration plan was first announced by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and subsequently endorsed by the current UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
The scheme, dubbed "Stop the Boats," has drawn criticism from international and domestic human rights organizations, and has been repeatedly delayed by legal challenges. The first flight under the scheme, scheduled for June 14, 2022, was cancelled at the last minute after the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) granted the appeal of all asylum seekers on board.
In March 2023, the British government introduced a bill to relocate illegal migrants to a "safe third country" such as Rwanda. However, in late June 2023, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that London's plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda was unlawful, leading to an appeal by the UK Home Office to reconsider the decision.
In early December, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly signed a new agreement on cooperation against irregular migration with Rwanda.
Last week, the anti-immigration bill passed its first vote in the House of Commons with a majority of 44 votes. However, it still faces opposition from some Conservative MPs who argue that it is not effective enough to stop illegal immigration into their country. They plan to propose amendments to the bill when it returns to the House of Commons in the new year. The bill is expected to face further challenges in the House of Lords, where the ruling party does not have a majority.
