Rwanda Plan Expanded to Include Failed Asylum Seekers

Illegal immigrants carry children as they are escorted to be processed after being picked up by a Royal National Lifeboat Institution lifeboat while crossing the English Channel at a beach in Dungeness, southeast England, on Sept. 7, 2021. Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images

Failed asylum seekers will be detained and forcibly removed to Rwanda, after London and Kigali agreed to extend the cohort of those eligible for deportation to the east African country, the government has announced.

Those “who have had an earlier protection or human rights claim refused or withdrawn and are unable to appeal their decision, can now expect to be removed to Rwanda,” the Home Office has said in a statement published to their website on Wednesday.

Previously, these measures related to those who arrived in the country illegally after Jan. 1, 2022 and whose asylum claims were deemed inadmissible, such as the asylum seekers who arrive illegally in small boats after crossing the English Channel.

“Those who have no right to remain in the UK should not be allowed to stay,” Home Secretary James Cleverly said, continuing, “We have a safe third country ready and waiting to accept people, offer them support across the board and help rebuild their lives.”

According to asylum statistics published by the House of Commons Library in March, last year there were 24,310 asylum claim refusals and 24,027 claims were withdrawn.

Operation Vector

Failed asylum seekers deported to Rwanda will not enter the country as asylum seekers but will be entitled to residency in Rwanda.

They will be offered a support package “to help rebuild their lives” provided under the Migration and Economic Development Partnership.

This package will be provided for up to five years and includes support for employment, accommodation, education, and training.

Previously, failed asylum seekers could voluntarily be sent to Rwanda, with the UK performing its first ever removal of that kind at the end of April.

Now, failed asylum seekers “who do not leave the UK voluntarily will be in line for detention and enforced removal to a safe third country under the new agreement,” the Home Office said.

The department signalled that they had already detained a group of failed asylum seekers eligible for removal, saying the “current cohort” being held “can be removed through existing legislation” to Rwanda.

“We continue to swiftly detain those in line for removal to ensure we have a steady drumbeat of flights to Rwanda,” Mr. Cleverly said.

Some 800 immigration enforcement officers are engaged under Operation Vector, the government’s measures to detain and deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda, which commenced raids across the country earlier this month.

Home Office Director of Enforcement Eddy Montgomery said on Thursday that his team had been “working to deliver this large-scale and complex operation.”

“My teams are made up of highly trained, specialist officers and are fully equipped to carry out the necessary enforcement activity at pace and in the safest way possible,” Mr. Montgomery said.

‘Robust’ Operational Plans in Place

The announcement comes after the the High Court in Belfast said on Monday that provisions under the Illegal Migration Act 2023 should be disallowed in Northern Ireland because they are incompatible with post-Brexit arrangements related to the Good Friday Agreement and that it was “incompatible” with the European Convention on Human Rights.

The government has said it will appeal the decision, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak saying the judgment “changes nothing” about the government’s operational plans to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda “or the lawfulness of our Safety of Rwanda Act.”

The Home Office said on Thursday that those individuals in this new cohort earmarked for removal “do not fall under the Illegal Migration Act, meaning the recent Northern Ireland High Court judgment on the legislation has no impact on current operations to relocate people.”

A government spokesperson previously told The Epoch Times that they had “robust operational plans in place to get flights off the ground to Rwanda in spring.”

The government said in its Thursday statement that it was making preparations for flights to take off in seven to nine weeks, including increasing detention capacity, putting an airport on standby, and booking commercial charter planes.