Rwanda Govt Says It Won’t Refund £270million Paid By UK In Asylum Programme Despite Cancellation
Dr. Doris Uwicyeza Picard, a representative from the Rwandan Ministry of Justice, affirmed that Rwanda had fulfilled its obligations under the agreement, which aimed to assist the UK in addressing its own asylum seeker issues.
seekers. “We work with organisations to take people from countries like Libya and provide them with opportunities in Rwanda,” she said.
“It beggars belief as to why Rwanda would be safe with these migrants rather than those migrants just because of the country they are coming from.”
The ending of the agreement will be complicated by a group of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers who were transferred to Rwanda from the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian ocean.
The four, who landed in Diego Garcia in October 2021, hoping to sail to Canada to claim asylum, are Britain’s responsibility. They told the BBC last month they felt “isolated and unsafe” in Rwanda.
They said they have become too scared to go out and are hoping that the UK will find them a more permanent place to live, away from Rwanda. Three members of the group have had their claims for asylum approved by British Indian Ocean Territory authorities.
Audit of Rwanda scheme costs
At the weekend, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, ordered an audit of the costs and liabilities of the Rwanda scheme which she hopes to publish before the summer recess at the end of July.
Labour says that scrapping the Rwanda scheme will free up £75 million in the first year of a Labour government to set up a new Border Security Command with Border Force, MI5 and the National Crime Agency (NCA) to crack down on people smuggling gangs.
Sir Keir pledged that the £75 million would be used to hire hundreds of extra investigators and “intelligence agents” who will be given counter-terror-style powers to prosecute gangs operating small boat routes across the Channel.
More than 90,000 migrants who were earmarked by Rishi Sunak’s government for deportation to Rwanda will be transferred to the asylum system entitling them to apply for leave to remain in the UK.
The Government also faces a multi-million pound compensation bill by more than 200 migrants who claim they were wrongly detained for flights to Rwanda this summer when there was no “realistic” prospect of their removal within a reasonable timescale.
The migrants were detained from the end of May – some in raids at their homes – but were subsequently bailed after courts ruled that there was no imminent prospect of their deportation to Rwanda. The Home Office said it had scheduled a flight for July 24.
A spokesman for Ms Cooper said: “This demonstrates a scandalous lack of care for taxpayer’s money – hundreds of million of pounds wasted on a gimmick that only saw four people removed in over two years. Imagine what that money could have done if it had been channelled into boosting Britain’s border security?
“Enough is enough. A Labour Government will invest in our border security with a new Border Security Command with hundreds of enforcement officers and investigators working across Europe to smash the criminal smuggling gangs making vast profit from small boat crossings.”
