LONDON, England
The British government is planning to pay asylum seekers up to £3,000 ($3,836) each to move to Rwanda under a voluntary plan to help clear the backlog of refugees who have had their applications to remain in the country rejected.
The new agreement with Rwanda
is separate from the government's stalled plan to forcibly deport most asylum
seekers to the country, which was last year ruled unlawful by the UK's Supreme Court.
Instead, it mirrors an
existing government policy, where asylum seekers are offered financial
assistance to leave the Britain for their home country, but under the new plan
people will get the money if they agree to live in Rwanda.
Kevin Hollinrake, a junior
Business Minister, said on Wednesday the new policy was a good use of public
money because it was cheaper than the cost of looking after people in Britain
who had been denied asylum, but not yet removed.
There are tens of thousands
of asylum seekers in Britain who have been refused asylum, but they
cannot be removed because the government is not allowed to return people to a
war-torn country or one with a poor human rights record.
"So, £3,000, of course
that's a lot of money, but nevertheless, it costs a lot of money to keep people
in the UK who are failed asylum seekers," Hollinrake told LBC
Radio.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has
invested huge amounts of political capital in a promise to stop the arrival of
asylum seekers who arrive without permission on England's southern coast in
small, inflatable boats.
Under that plan, the
government wants to send thousands of people to Rwanda, but the Supreme
Court ruled last year the policy was unlawful as it would violate British
and international human rights laws.
In an effort to overcome
resistance from the courts, Sunak's government is passing legislation through
parliament that would block further legal challenges by declaring Rwanda a
so-called safe country for asylum seekers.
Rwanda currently has the
capacity to accept a few hundred asylum seekers a year from Britain, the
British government has said, adding the capacity could be increased.
Sunak has said he wants the
first deportation flights to leave in the next few months - ahead of a national
election expected in the second half of this year - so he can meet a pledge to
"stop the boats".
No comments:
Post a Comment