The Cruel Spectacle of British Asylum Policy

Last week Britain’s Parliament passed a law that seeks to redefine reality.

The Safety of Rwanda Act declares Rwanda a “safe” country, regardless of the evidence to the contrary — and orders British courts to do the same. Its purpose is to allow the British government to finally, after two years, enact its policy to permanently deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Some of the most vulnerable people in Britain will be rounded up, detained and then — in theory — flown some 4,000 miles to Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. What to do about people seeking asylum is one of the most complex policy issues facing governments around the world, and the British government insists it has the answer: promise cartoonish cruelty.

In April 2022, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a multimillion-pound deal with Rwanda that would allow the British government to put “tens of thousands” of asylum seekers on one-way flights to Kigali.

Asylum seekers have been crossing to Britain from France for decades, often hiding in trucks going through the Channel Tunnel. But increased security checks on those routes, and a temporary fall in traffic during Covid lockdowns, had led to a sharp rise in the proportion of people crossing the English Channel in small boats. This highly visible and dangerous method has caused much controversy in Britain. The Rwanda policy would help, the government claimed, because deporting some of those who succeeded in reaching Britain would deter others from trying.

The deal was condemned by human rights groups and the United Nations refugee agency, which urged both countries to rethink the plans, and then it was delayed by legal challenges. In November last year, Britain’s highest court found the policy unlawful on the grounds that Rwanda — where the police shot dead 12 Congolese refugees during a protest in 2018 — was not a safe place to deport asylum seekers. Rwanda, the court said, might send them back to countries where their lives could be at risk.

That might have spelled an end to the policy. But Rishi Sunak, who had become prime minister in October 2022, vowed to revive it. The law that passed last week aims to override that court ruling by declaring that Rwanda is safe. As one former senior government lawyer observed last week, “What the act is doing is making it lawful to send people to Rwanda whether it is safe or not.” More legal challenges may follow.