The British government’s controversial plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda is set to become law. The unelected House of Lords cleared the way for the bill to become law after dropping the last of its suggested amendments.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has repeatedly stated his commitment to the plan, which he believes will deter people without visas from crossing the English Channel from France to England.
The plan is to send some of the people the government says arrive illegally in the U.K. to Rwanda, where local authorities would process their asylum claims. The U.K. signed a deal with Rwanda in April 2022, in which Rwanda agreed to process and settle asylum-seekers who initially arrive in Britain.
The U.K. government says the threat of being deported to Rwanda will deter migrants from making the dangerous journey across the Channel. It recorded more than 4,600 migrants crossing the Channel from January to March, surpassing a previous total for that period.
Critics and lawmakers say there’s no evidence the plan would work as a deterrent. Sunak, who is trailing in the polls ahead of an election expected this fall, is staking his Conservative Party’s reelection campaign on this plan, despite several legal challenges from top British and European courts.
No flights deporting migrants have left from London for Rwanda in the two years since the plan was first announced by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In June 2022, a plane was grounded by an eleventh-hour ruling from the European Court of Human Rights, which intervened to stop the deportation of one of the asylum-seekers on the flight. This provided grounds for the remaining six people on the flight to put forward legal challenges in London courts.
The plan has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and lawmakers from different parties, including some in Sunak’s own party, who say it is incompatible with the U.K.’s responsibilities under international human rights law. Many also say it’s no coincidence that Sunak is pushing this through Parliament within months of an expected election.
Opinion polls show the British public is largely divided over the idea of deporting asylum-seekers to Rwanda.
The British government has already paid Rwanda nearly $300 million to take asylum-seekers Britain doesn’t want. While Sunak’s Conservatives largely support the transfer to Rwanda, some hard-liners in his party say the latest version of the legislation, which has been rewritten several times, isn’t tough enough.
While Sunak may have overcome one hurdle this week, experts say he can expect others. ‘His real headaches might be ahead. Now he’s got to show whether it works or not,’ Katwala says. One challenge may be getting an airline to agree to participate. On Monday, experts from the United Nations’ High Commissioner for Human Rights warned aviation authorities against facilitating what it called ‘unlawful removals’ of asylum-seekers to Rwanda, saying they risk violating international human rights laws.
