UK Home Secretary visits Rwanda to discuss controversial deportation scheme | CNN

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British Home Secretary Sylla Braverman arrived in Rwanda on Saturday. CONTROVERSIAL AGREEMENT In which it will be seen that the UK has illegally brought asylum seekers to the African country.

The scheme has been mired in legal trouble – no one has yet been deported – and Braverman’s visit has been criticized because he invited journalists from right-wing titles to accompany him. Except for liberals.

Before departing, Braverman reaffirmed his commitment to the scheme, saying it would “serve as a powerful deterrent against dangerous and illegal travel,” the PA reported.

Braverman arrived in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where she was received by the Permanent Secretary of the Rwandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Clementine Mukika, and the British High Commissioner to Rwanda, Omar Dyer.

The visit comes 11 months after the UK government outlined plans to send thousands of migrants who have entered the country illegally to Rwanda to process their asylum claims. .

The government insisted that the program was meant to be disruptive. People-trafficking networks and preventing migrants from making the perilous sea journey across the Channel from France to England.

The plan, which will see Britain pay Rwanda $145 million (£120 million) over the next five years, has faced backlash from NGOs, asylum seekers and the civil service trade union, which has criticized it. The legality has been questioned, due to which the government is delaying its implementation.

The first scheduled flight to Rwanda was canceled after an eleventh-hour delay back in June, so far no flight has taken place. Intervention By the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), months of legal challenges have since halted the program.

The UK government has made stopping migrants arriving on its shores in small boats a top priority.

The Illegal Migration Bill, which is being debated in Parliament, gives the government the right to deport anyone who comes to the UK illegally. In many cases, there is no safe and legal way into the UK, meaning many asylum seekers can only arrive illegally.

Alexander Bates, director of the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, said that under the bill, people arriving in Britain “would not be allowed to have their asylum claims assessed, even if they were refugees from war-torn societies”. I am.”

Instead, they will either be immediately removed to their country of origin, or to a third country such as Rwanda.

But there are concerns that the proposed legislation is illegal.

“When you open the bill, there’s a big red flag on the first page that says: This could be a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights,” Bates told CNN. told.

He added that the proposed bill was of “historical significance,” as it “abandoned the principle of the right to asylum to a liberal, democratic state.”

The United Nations Court of Human Rights warned that the bill, if enacted, would be in “clear violation” of the refugee convention.

There are also concerns that the bill is unworkable. Government of Rwanda Indicated that it can only process 1,000 asylum seekers in an initial five-year period;

In contrast, there are 45,755 people. Estimated Only in 2022 did they reach Britain via small boats across the English Channel.