The UK has a new plan for illegal immigrants: Send them to Rwanda

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hosts a press conference inside the Downing Street Briefing Room, in central London, on December 7, 2023, after Britain and Rwanda sign a new treaty to transfer illegal migrants to the African country. Britain and Rwanda signed a new treaty on Tuesday in a bid to revive a controversial proposal by London to transfer migrants to the East African country that was blocked by the UK courts. The agreement, which UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says is crucial to achieve his pledge of slashing irregular migration before a general election expected next year, was signed in Kigali. (Photo by James Manning / POOL / AFP) (Photo by JAMES MANNING/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

by Donald Kirk, opinion contributor

Why not ship them to Rwanda?

That’s the solution espoused by Britain’s conservative prime minister, Rishi Sunak, on the issue of illegal immigration into the United Kingdom.

Granted, the British problem is incomparably less severe than America’s, but the government’s proposal to send as many as it can find of its 100,000 or so “irregular immigrants,” as they’re called, does sound strangely like a campaign dating from before the Civil War for sending American slaves back to Africa.

Fighting to keep the conservative majority in the House of Commons in elections later this year, Sunak would like to see about a thousand people a month flying to Rwanda, whose 14.4 million people subsist largely on farming. The opposition Labor Party has decried the whole idea as cruel and inhumane.

Though the Commons has just passed a bill declaring Rwanda a safe enough place for the government to approve a treaty with the landlocked East African country, the House of Lords, under Labor Party pressure, is delaying action at least until March. Instead, Lords who oppose the scheme are calling for an elaborate measure guaranteeing the safety and rights for those unfortunate enough to be sent there.

“The question today is simply whether we can honestly say that Rwanda is a safe country,” Lord David Alton of Liverpool declared Monday as debate opened in the House of Lords. Evoking memories of the massacre by the country’s Hutu majority 30 years ago, in which at least 500,000 members of the Tutsi minority were killed, Alton cited the country’s current human rights record, including “political oppression and treatment of LGBT people.”

The rationale for sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda, according to an Oxford study, is “to deter people from making dangerous journeys to claim asylum, which are facilitated by criminal smugglers, when they have already traveled through safe third countries.” An editorial in the conservative Daily Telegraph reflected widespread concerns similar to those of American governors and mayors.

“Net immigration is at a record high,” said the paper. “It is increasingly clear that Britain’s current course is putting intolerable strain on public services, infrastructure and the housing market, let alone the social fabric binding our democracy together.”

Despite all of Sunak’s pleas for his plan, it may not have a prayer of really working.

“Only one in five voters think Rishi Sunak will ever send asylum seekers to Rwanda,” said I Weekend, an upmarket English tabloid, in a front-page headline. “Right-wing Conservatives believe plan is crucial to election prospects, but majority of public says it won’t change their vote or will make them more likely to support rival.”

Now, the notion of sending “irregular immigrants” to Rwanda differs from U.S. proposals that would send millions of illegal immigrants back where they came from, in one vital respect: none of them count Rwanda as their home country. Until lately, it’s likely that many of them had never heard of the place.

Nor did they make their way across the border of a neighboring country. All of them had to have arrived in Britain on often dangerous crossings by small boats or on vehicles ferried across the English Channel from France. Most of them are from Middle Eastern countries racked by revolts and internal dissent, led by Iran, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Rwanda got picked as the dumping ground for illegals into Britain after having accepted a few thousand from North African countries plagued by political upheaval. The scheme has been a bonanza for the country’s long ruling president, Paul Kagame, whose government has already received more than $300 million from Britain for the program and stands to get another $64 million this year.

In power for more than 20 years, reputed as a corrupt dictator, Kagame has vowed Britain will get its money back if the plan isn’t implemented, but an aide said Rwanda isn’t obligated to return anything. No one’s betting the Brits will see the money again.

Sunak has staked much of his political power on ramming through his new “Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill” since Britain’s supreme court ruled in November that the original scheme was unlawful. The court agreed with a lower court decision that refugees, if sent to Rwanda, risked being returned to their native countries, where they could face harsh punishment.

The new bill provides for a much stricter review process — and the option that anyone rejected by Rwanda could be returned to Britain. Lord Goldsmith, of the opposition Labor Party, called for much more stringent guarantees, beginning with adoption by Rwanda of an asylum law and appointments of independent experts, judges and advisers to ensure that all those caught in the government’s attempt at cracking down on illegal immigration were treated fairly.

Sugarcoated with rights for review, the system as proposed leaves no doubt that the Brits are just as wary of illegal immigrants as are the citizens of other countries (notably America). British leaders may not be capable of rounding up illegals and bussing them elsewhere, as are American governors, but they definitely want to send them packing.

The final tally of approval of the revised bill in the House of Commons, by a vote of 320 to 276, was seen as a triumph for Sunak. Despite the prospect of a delay in the House of Lords, a spokesman said the government should begin sending refugees to Rwanda before more are tempted to cross the English Channel in warm weather.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, when he introduced what was sanctimoniously called the Migration and Economic Development Partnership bill, said it meant “anyone entering illegally” since January 1, 2022, “may now be relocated to Rwanda.”

More than 40,000 made it illegally across the English Channel last year.

The UK has a new plan for illegal immigrants: Send them to Rwanda

Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He is currently a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea, and is the author of several books about Asian affairs.