British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak vowed on Monday to start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda within 12 to XNUMX weeks after the upper house of parliament finally passed the necessary legislation, which had been delayed for weeks by attempts to reverse the plan.
Sunak said the government has booked commercial charter planes and trained staff to fly migrants to Rwanda, a policy he hopes will boost his Conservative party's fortunes ahead of elections later this year.
The House of Lords had long refused to back the demerger bill without additional safeguards, but eventually relented after Mr Sunak said the government would force Parliament into the session needed to pass it.
"There are no ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda," Sunak said at a press conference earlier on Monday.
Tens of thousands of migrants - many fleeing wars and poverty in Africa, the Middle East and Asia - have arrived in the UK in recent years by crossing the English Channel in small boats on perilous journeys organized by people-smuggling gangs.
Stopping the flow of migrants is a priority for the government, but critics say the plan to deport people to Rwanda instead of processing asylum claims in Britain is inhumane. They cite concerns about the state of human rights in the East African country and the risk that asylum seekers could be sent back to countries where they face danger.
Sunak's new law stipulates that some existing British human rights rules will not apply and that British judges must treat Rwanda as a safe destination, an attempt to overturn a Supreme Court ruling that declared the plan illegal.
It also limits individuals' ability to appeal to only exceptional cases. Speaking before the bill was passed, Sunak said airports were ready, seats were reserved for flights and 500 border guards were ready to escort migrants "all the way to Rwanda."
Under a policy formulated two years ago and agreed with Rwanda, any asylum seeker who arrives in the UK illegally will be sent to Rwanda under a scheme the government says will prevent crossing the channel and break the current pattern of people-smuggling. Even after successfully overcoming parliamentary obstacles, Sunak could still face legal challenges to the law.
Charities and rights groups have announced they will try to stop individual deportations, with the union representing border guards vowing to challenge the new law as illegal "within days" of the first asylum seekers being told they will be sent to Rwanda.
"We urgently need the UK government to start treating refugees decently and stop trying to send them to an uncertain future in Rwanda," Luci Gregg, acting head of Advocacy at Freedom from Torture, told Reuters.
Other European countries, including Austria and Germany, are also considering agreements to process asylum seekers abroad.
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