Does the adoption of the Rwanda Security Bill make Rwanda a safe country?

After lengthy legal challenges and a marathon session of parliamentary ping-pong between the Lords and Commons, the highly controversial Rwanda Security Bill was finally adopted in the early hours of April 23.

Two years ago, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson promised to send dozens of thousands of asylum seekers to Rwanda, with the aim of stopping the flow of refugees crossing the Channel in small boats. Fast forward to 2024 and no one has yet been sent to Rwanda, despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's desperate attempts to stop the boats before the next election.

Due to determined opposition to the bill and ongoing problems with it, Sunak failed to meet his desired spring deadline. The earliest possible date for a deportation flight will now be July, he admitted in a statement. press conference before the parliamentary debate.

Is the Rwandan bill legal and will it prevail over international law?

I followed this utterly despicable program, as the SNP Alison Thewliss called it, from the start, through three Prime Ministers and four Home Ministers. In November 2023, the Supreme Court ruled that Rwanda's planned expulsion was illegal. That should have been the end of the plans. Instead, Sunak continued his bill to show that Rwanda East a safe country.

The scene in Alice in Wonderland when gardeners frantically paint white roses, red comes to mind. No wonder Lord Anderson called him a post-truth bill. On the Today on April 22, another opposition member, Lord Carlile, also a vocal opponent of the bill, called it poorly judged, poorly drafted, inappropriate and illegal under current British and international law.

It is extremely concerning that the Bill seeks to place parliamentary legislation above international law. For example, he States (section 1.4): International law does not take precedence over acts of Parliament. It also aims to prohibit legal recourse (article 2) and to eliminate numerous provisions of the 1998 law. Human Rights Act. Presumably, this is an attempt to preempt an injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which prevented a flight to Rwanda to leave in June 2022.

Refugee charities responded with condemnation and vowed to oppose the legislation. THE Refugee Council said: By contradicting the Supreme Court which declares Rwanda safe, this Orwellian law will only exacerbate chaos in the asylum system, at enormous cost to the taxpayer.

Rwandan project: an exorbitant ploy

The National Audit Office recently revealed that the Rwandan project would cost taxpayers dearly. 1.8 million for each of the first asylum seekers sent to Rwanda. The British government has already paid 240 million to Rwanda and total cost of the project will be at least 370 million over five years. Home Secretary James Cleverly spent more than 165,000 in a single visit to Kigali to sign a new treaty in December 2023.

These staggering amounts were condemned by Diana Johnson, chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee. Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called it a hugely expensive ploy and promised that Labor would repeal the legislation if it won the next election.

Such enormous sums would be much better invested in improving the current arrangements for processing asylum seekers, who are severely delayedcausing great distress to those awaiting decisions.

Unresolved problems: lack of housing, transportation and union support

There are a large number of unresolved questions: for example, it is not clear where asylum seekers will be housed if and when some of them are deported. In March last year, there was great fanfare when the then Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, inspected potential accommodation for migrants in Kigali. But it is now claimed that 70% of housing has been renovated. soldleaving few places available.

It is also unclear whether any airline has agreed to transport refugees. Charter company AirTanker is in talks with the government but has refused to confirm or deny allegations of a contract. During the final debate in the House of Lords, Lord Carlile said he had serious doubts on the truth, given the fictions underlying the bill.

UN experts have warned that airlines could be complicit in violations of internationally protected human rights by facilitating returns to Rwanda. In addition, the FDA union representing civil servants threat of legal actionsaying Interior Ministry staff could violate international law if they enforced the new law.

The Rwandan project is performative cruelty and will be fought

THE death of five peopleincluding a child, in the English Channel on April 23 are tragic, Sunak said, and a reminder of why my project is so important because there is a certain element of compassion in everything we do.

Such pious comments do not ring true when the rhetoric around small boat crossings has always been to wrongly portray refugees as illegal migrants. A senior official recently reported that Cabinet office officials have shockingly inhumane conversations, calling people arriving on small boats bloody migrants and not caring whether these people will die.

Illegal Immigration Minister Michael Tomlinson said the government was prepared to a range of legal challenges to politics. But Nicholas Hughes, a lawyer representing some asylum seekers facing deportation to Rwanda, said they would only receive seven days' notice if they were chosen, leaving them very little time to prepare their defense.

THE Joint Council for Immigrant Welfare said the bill was shameful and placed performative cruelty above people's lives. We must oppose the law and continue to fight for those seeking refuge. The bill was also condemned by the Council of Europe and Amnesty International, who called it a matter of national shame.

There is little evidence that recently passed legislation will deter desperate refugees from attempting the Channel crossing. Further delays in the Government's implementation of this policy will inevitably follow and, sadly, more lives are likely to be lost which could be saved through more humane approaches to asylum seeking.