Sunak promises deportation flights to Rwanda will begin this summer

by Sarah Young, Elizabeth Piper and Alistair Smout

LONDON, April 23 (Reuters) – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised on Monday to carry out the first deportation flights for asylum seekers to Rwanda within ten to twelve weeks, despite the bill to this effect which he had been pushing for months was finally approved by the upper house of Parliament.

Rishi Sunak, who came to power in October 2022, has made the fight against the flow of migrants arriving illegally in the United Kingdom one of his priorities, seeking to pass immigration reform with the hope that this will benefit to his Conservative Party, in bad shape, during the legislative elections expected by the end of the year.

He said the government had booked the first commercial charter planes and trained staff to transport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Approved last January by the House of Commons, the text has since been blocked by the House of Lords, which called for additional protections.

However, the upper house finally gave in late Monday evening after Rishi Sunak warned that the government would force parliamentarians to continue debates all night if necessary.

“No ifs, no buts. These flights will leave for Rwanda,” the British leader said during a press conference during the day.

In recent years, tens of thousands of migrants – many fleeing war and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and Asia – have arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel in makeshift boats, at great risk. their lives, via networks of ‘smugglers’.

Critics of the text supported by Rishi Sunak denounced an inhumane project, citing concerns about respect for human rights in Rwanda and the risk that asylum seekers would be returned to countries where they are in danger.

While the British Supreme Court rejected an earlier version of the bill last November, ruling that Rwanda was not a safe place to deport migrants, the government has since made amendments to the text to avoid find itself overhanging.

The text is expected to be approved this week by King Charles, before being promulgated into law.

The project, after its long parliamentary journey, could however find itself facing legal obstacles, NGOs having expressed their desire to oppose deportations while a customs union promised to argue that the text was illegal.

Several European countries, including Austria and Germany, are studying the possibility of also sealing an agreement with third countries to send their asylum seekers there. (Elizabeth Piper, Sarah Young, Alistair Smout and Sachin Ravikumar; French version Jean Terzian)