With Deportation to Rwanda Imminent, Here's the Situation for Migrants Detained in Britain

The UK continues to increasingly press for the implementation of its controversial model by sending irregular migrants to Rwanda, a dangerous country in East Africa, according to observers.

Nonetheless, the irregular refugees reject the deportation plan from Britain to Rwanda, continuing their legal battle to overturn the decision before the first flight departs for the unfamiliar African country.

The British government informed the High Court in London that it expects the first deportation flights to Rwanda to take off between July 1 and July 15, 2024.

Near the Deportation Date 

Judge Martin Chamberlain revealed the dates while setting a hearing session for a legal challenge to the controversial plan brought forth by the trade union FDA, representing civil service and public sector employees.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced on April 22, 2024, that he expected the first flights to depart within 10 to 12 weeks but did not specify a definite date.

The proposed dates for the first flights fall during the presidential and parliamentary election campaigns in Rwanda, scheduled for July 15, 2024.

The trade union demands a judicial review of a recently passed law classifying Rwanda, located in East Africa, as a safe country despite the UK Supreme Court ruling the deportation operations illegal.

Further, the union seeks clarification on how the law aligns with civil service law.

While the law binds civil servants, politically neutral in the United Kingdom, to enforce it, the new law allows ministers to disregard paragraphs of domestic and international human rights law when deciding on deportation operations, as well as any Rule 39 orders from the European Court of Human Rights.

The influx of migrants arriving irregularly in the UK by crossing the Channel continues, as these perilous journeys have seen a significant increase since the beginning of 2024, with 9000 migrants.

The Conservatives, who have been in power for 14 years in the United Kingdom, appear fatigued and divided as they face difficulties in fulfilling some promises made before Britain's exit from the European Union, especially regarding combating irregular migration.

The current government's plan aims to deport about 2000 asylum seekers to Rwanda to deter migrants attempting to cross the English Channel to the UK from northern France.

The British government announced in late April 2024 that it had begun detaining asylum seekers whose requests had been denied deporting them to Rwanda, sparking widespread protests.

British Persecution

A Syrian asylum seeker detained in a removal center, awaiting deportation to Rwanda, has stated that he will commit suicide upon arrival, believing the country is unsafe for him. 

Khaled, a pseudonym used to protect his identity, spoke exclusively to the Guardian from his cell at Colnbrook immigration removal center. He arrived there in June 2022 and has a history of torture and imprisonment. 

He mentioned that he and other detained asylum seekers of various nationalities are struggling with their confinement due to past experiences of imprisonment and persecution.

“Everyone is so stressed in here because of Rwanda. We can’t eat and we can’t sleep. I was displaced in Syria for nine years and was imprisoned there and I was also detained and tortured in Libya. Being in detention is very triggering for me. What matters to asylum seekers is to be safe. I will not be safe in Rwanda. If they manage to send me there, I will kill myself on arrival in that country.” 

He said when he found out about Rwanda in February 2023 he became “very scared”.

“I went to report last week in Birmingham. They arrested me and put me in handcuffs in a police cell. The same thing happened to two other people who were reporting – Iraqi Kurds. After we were taken out of the cell we were handcuffed again and taken in a van to the detention center. I have been trying to see a doctor in the detention center because of an infection in my leg. I need antibiotics, but so far, I have not managed to get an appointment,” Khaled added. 

Many human rights organizations and UK parliamentarians consider the deportation plan for refugees to Rwanda as "shameful."

Opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer announced in May 2024 that he would abandon the government's plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, which he considers costly and ineffective, stating that the government has lost control of its borders.

Random Selection

On the other hand, a Syrian refugee in the UK, Sahib al-Jaber, said, "There is no distinction between the nationalities of refugees who have been randomly selected and the unknown, whether they come from safe countries or countries at war like Syria, to be deported to Rwanda, estimated at 2000 asylum seekers from various nationalities, including about 500 Syrian refugees out of about fifty thousand asylum applications in Britain."

Speaking to Al-Estiklal, al-Jaber, one of the threatened asylum seekers facing deportation to Rwanda, said, "To this day, no one has been deported to Rwanda from Britain, while the rest will be brought before the court at a time when lawyers confirm that Syrian asylum seekers will not be deported despite selecting this number for deportation to Rwanda for principal reasons, their country is not safe."

According to al-Jaber, "The integration of Syrians into British society is an important factor that nullifies deportation. Many of them have pending asylum requests, and the Geneva Convention allows them to seek asylum anywhere, even if they pass through safe countries. This is the argument the UK deportation office clings to, aiming to return them to those countries or ultimately to Rwanda. However, this option is unlikely to be executed. The real goal is to obstruct the asylum process and neglect their applications."

Al-Jaber, who has been imprisoned and tortured in Assad's regime prisons for his involvement in the revolution, pointed out that "his asylum application has been pending for over a year and a half, with no specific timeframe for decision-making, so the period is unlimited and may continue for years."

"But at the moment, asylum seekers who have been officially notified by email that they will be deported to Rwanda review centers affiliated with the Ministry of Interior every 14 days, and are inspected by officers due to the presence of 17,000 asylum applications that are not present on British soil and receive financial aid through cards issued to them," al-Jaber added.

"It seems that the conservative British government is evading its failure in services, health care, strikes, and others through asylum seekers," he concluded.

Rwanda Horror

On April 14, 2022, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans to deport those arriving in the UK by small boats to Rwanda to process their claims.

He insisted at the time that this plan would be a significant deterrent, and Rwanda is one of the safest countries in the world, with the ability to resettle tens of thousands of people in the coming years. The costs will include an initial payment of £120 million.

On June 14, 2022, the first flight carrying asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was canceled just minutes before takeoff after the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg issued last-minute injunctions to stop it. It is believed that seven individuals were on board.

Following that, Rwanda's model shifted in subsequent British governments, until on December 5, 2023, Britain and Rwanda signed a new treaty on asylum in an attempt to address the concerns of the Supreme Court.

James Cleverly traveled to Kigali to sign it, becoming the third Home Secretary to travel to Rwanda, following Priti Patel and Braverman.

The British government says the new treaty ensures that individuals transferred to Rwanda are not at risk of being returned to a country where their lives or freedoms are threatened.

On December 6, the day after, the British government introduced the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill to override the Supreme Court ruling. The aim of the bill, which declares Rwanda a safe country, is to prevent Strasbourg from halting the deportation of asylum seekers to East Africa.

In early March 2024, the National Audit Office, an official watchdog group, said that plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda would cost taxpayers £1.8 million for the first 300 people the government deported.

The total cost of the plan is over half a billion pounds, according to figures from the National Audit Office.

Even if the UK does not send anyone to the African country, Sunak has agreed to pay £370 million from the Treasury during the five-year deal.

On April 22, 2024, the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill was passed after weeks of parliamentary debate, where peers repeatedly blocked the legislation with a series of amendments. However, eventually, their peers relented, meaning the controversial bill would become law.

The British government announced the possibility of deporting a specific group of asylum seekers to Rwanda, totaling 5,700 people, "by the end of 2024."

These individuals were selected from among 57,000 people who arrived illegally in the UK via the English Channel between January and June 2023, according to a census conducted by Agence France-Presse based on official figures.

In mid-November 2023, the UK Supreme Court ruled that deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda violates international law, dealing a blow to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The court found that migrants are at risk of being expelled from Rwanda to their country of origin, where they may face harassment, contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding torture and inhuman treatment, to which the UK is a party.

Rwanda, with a population of 13 million, considers itself one of the most stable African countries. However, human rights groups accuse its president, Paul Kagame, of ruling in an atmosphere of intimidation, suppressing opposition and freedom of expression.

More than 800,000 men, women, and children, most of them Tutsis but also moderate Hutus, were killed in massacres where family members and friends turned against each other, in one of the darkest chapters in late twentieth-century history.

Therefore, many human rights organizations consider Rwanda to be an unsafe country for refugees for several reasons.

Firstly, the country has a poor human rights record. Rwanda has previously incited killings of people who criticize its government, prompting British police to warn Rwandan citizens living in the UK of reliable plans by the Rwandan state to kill them.

There are also concerns among government officials in the UK about restrictions on political and media freedom there.

In this context, the incident in 2018 is often remembered when Rwandan police opened fire on refugees protesting against food ration reductions, resulting in the deaths of at least twelve people.