British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is standing by his plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Sunak is advocating for the “Safety of Rwanda” Bill – a piece of emergency legislation that deems the African nation a safe country where illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom can be legally transported. The U.K. Supreme Court previously declared a plan to send immigrants without legal status to Rwanda was unlawful.
While advocating for the bill on Dec. 8, the prime minister said the policy would allow for deportations to take place without judicial roadblocks.
“We started the week taking action to bring down net migration,” he wrote in a thread on X. “Our plans are expected to deliver our biggest ever reduction – cutting numbers by around 300,000. Migration will always benefit the UK, but we must end the abuse of our system and reach a sustainable level.”
Sunak referred to the new treaty as the “toughest anti-illegal immigration law ever to finally stop the boats” and promised it would ensure Parliament “controls who comes to this country, not criminal gangs or foreign courts.”
“As the child of immigrants, I understand why people want to come to the UK,” he added. “But my parents came here legally. We cannot have criminal gangs exploiting the vulnerable.”
Critics of the bill say it allows the government to ignore some sections of the Human Rights Act and would give U.K. courts “the ability to ignore any injunction from the European Court of Human Rights to block flights,” per Al Jazeera.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman published an open letter on Nov. 14 denouncing Sunak and his deportation plan.
“The act is far from secure against legal challenge. People will not be removed as swiftly as I originally proposed. The average claimant will be entitled to months of process, challenge, and appeal,” she wrote, per The Guardian. “Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently.”
Robert Jenrick, Sunak’s immigration minister, resigned on Dec. 6. In a letter to Sunak, Jenrick said he had “strong disagreements with the direction of the Government’s policy on immigration,” per the Evening Standard.
Between Jan. 1 and March 31, just under 3,800 migrants arrived in the U.K. after crossing the English Channel in small boats. During the previous three-month period, just over 12,700 migrants arrived in the same method. The British government notes arrival tends to peak during warmer weather.
“Between 1 January and 31 March 2023, the most common nationality arriving via small boat was Afghans (909, 24%) followed by Indians (675, 18%),” reported the Home Office. “In 2022, almost half of small boat arrivals were Albanians (28% of the total, although these arrivals occurred mostly between July and September 2022) and Afghans (20%, with their numbers greater towards the end of the year).”
