British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has decided to toughen UK migration policy, taking a controversial decision to say the least. The United Kingdom announced on Thursday April 14 that it plans to send asylum seekers who arrived illegally to Rwanda, hoping to deter clandestine crossings of the Channel, which are on the rise.
This project, likely to apply to all people who have entered the territory illegally, wherever they come from (Iran, Syria, Eritrea, etc.), has provoked scandalized reactions. Human rights organizations have denounced his “inhumanity”. The opposition judged that the Prime Minister was trying to divert attention after the fine he received for a birthday party in full confinement. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), for its part, expressed “his strong opposition”:
“People fleeing war, conflict and persecution deserve compassion and empathy. They should not be traded like commodities and transferred overseas for processing. »
A project costing 144 million euros
While Mr Johnson had promised to control immigration, one of the key issues in the Brexit campaign, the number of illegal Channel crossings tripled in 2021, a year marked in particular by the death of twenty-seven people in a sinking at the end of November. London regularly criticizes Paris for not doing enough to prevent the crossings.
” From now on (…), anyone entering the UK illegally as well as those who have arrived illegally since 1er January can now be transferred to Rwanda”, announced the Conservative leader in a speech in Kent (south-east of England). Rwanda will be able to host “tens of thousands of people in the years to come”he added, describing the East African country as one of the “safest in the world, recognized worldwide for its record of welcoming and integrating migrants”.
Under the agreement announced Thursday, London will initially finance the device to the tune of 144 million euros. The Rwandan government specified that it would propose the possibility “to settle permanently in Rwanda [à ces personnes si elles] wish ».
Eager to regain popularity ahead of local elections next month, Mr Johnson and his government have been seeking for months to strike deals with third countries where to send illegal immigrants while they wait to process their cases.
Control of the English Channel entrusted to the navy
“Our compassion may be infinite, but our ability to help people is not”said Mr. Johnson, who anticipates legal challenges against the device. “Those who try to skip the queue or abuse our system will not have an automatic route to settle in our country but will be expeditiously and humanely returned to a safe third country or their country of origin “he added.
Migrants arriving in the United Kingdom will no longer be accommodated in hotels, but in reception centers, like those that exist in Greece, with a first center “opening soon”Mr. Johnson announced.
As part of this plan, which complements a vast law on immigration currently in Parliament and already criticized by the United Nations (UN), the government entrusts control of illegal Channel crossings to the navy on Thursday. , equipped with additional equipment. On the other hand, he gave up his plan to push back the boats entering British waters, a measure decried on the French side.
NGOs outraged
By sending asylum seekers more than 6,000 kilometers from the United Kingdom, London wants to discourage candidates for immigration, who are ever more numerous: 28,500 people made these perilous crossings in 2021, against 8,466 in 2020, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.
Amnesty International criticized “a scandalously ill-conceived idea” who “will cause suffering while wasting huge sums of public money”also emphasizing the “dismal human rights record” of Rwanda.
Daniel Sohege, director of human rights organization Stand For All, told Agence France-Presse that the government’s initiative was “inhumane, impractical and very costly”recommending opening entry routes into the UK instead “safer” because those that exist are “very limited”.