Current:Home > MarketsThe UK says it has paid Rwanda $300 million for a blocked asylum deal. No flights have taken off-InfoLens
The UK says it has paid Rwanda $300 million for a blocked asylum deal. No flights have taken off
View Date:2024-12-23 10:42:01
LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was under pressure Friday to explain why Britain has paid Rwanda 240 million pounds ($300 million) as part of a blocked asylum plan, without a single person being sent to the East African country.
The total is almost twice the 140 million pounds that Britain previously said it had handed to the Rwandan government under a deal struck in April 2022. Under the agreement, migrants who reach Britain across the English Channel would be sent to Rwanda, where their asylum claims would be processed and, if successful, they would stay.
The plan was challenged in U.K. courts, and no flights to Rwanda have taken off. Last month, Britain’s Supreme Court ruled the policy was illegal because Rwanda isn’t a safe country for refugees.
Despite the ruling and the mounting cost, Sunak has pledged to press on with the plan.
The Home Office said it had paid a further 100 million pounds to Rwanda in the 2023-24 financial year and expects to hand over 50 million pounds more in the coming 12 months.
Junior Immigration Minister Tom Pursglove defended the cost, saying the money would ensure “all of the right infrastructure to support the partnership is in place.”
“Part of that money is helpful in making sure that we can respond to the issues properly that the Supreme Court raised,” he said.
The opposition Liberal Democrats said it was “an unforgivable waste of taxpayers’ money.”
The Rwanda plan is central to the U.K. government’s self-imposed goal to stop unauthorized asylum-seekers from trying to reach England from France in small boats. More than 29,000 people have done that this year, and 46,000 in 2022.
Since the Supreme Court ruling, Britain and Rwanda have signed a treaty pledging to strengthen protections for migrants. Sunak’s government argues that the treaty allows it to pass a law declaring Rwanda a safe destination.
The law, if approved by Parliament, would allow the government to “disapply” sections of U.K. human rights law when it comes to Rwanda-related asylum claims and make it harder to challenge the deportations in court.
The bill, which has its first vote scheduled in the House of Commons on Tuesday, has roiled the governing Conservative Party, which is trailing the Labour opposition in opinion polls, with an election due in the next year.
It faces opposition from centrist Conservative lawmakers who worry about Britain breaching its human rights obligations.
But the bigger danger for Sunak comes from Conservatives on the party’s authoritarian right wing who think the bill is too mild and want the U.K. to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Almost every European country, apart from Russia and Belarus, is bound by the convention and its court.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick piled pressure on the prime minister when he quit the government this week, saying the bill did not go far enough.
Sunak insists the bill goes as far as the government can without scuttling the deal because Rwanda will pull out of the agreement if the U.K. breaks international law.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of migration issues at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
veryGood! (33992)
Related
- Judge sets April trial date for Sarah Palin’s libel claim against The New York Times
- North Carolina woman charged in death of assisted living resident pushed to floor, police say
- Detroit man who threatened Michigan governor, secretary of state sentenced to 15 months probation
- Police: Squatters in Nashville arrested, say God told them to stay at million-dollar home
- Mega Millions winning numbers for November 8 drawing: Jackpot rises to $361 million
- After 4 years, trial begins for captain in California boat fire that killed 34
- Georgia Supreme Court allows 6-week abortion ban to stand for now
- 5,000 UAW members go on strike at Arlington Assembly Plant in Texas
- Daniele Rustioni to become Metropolitan Opera’s principal guest conductor
- Giants set to hire Padres' Bob Melvin as their new manager
Ranking
- Vermont man is fit to stand trial over shooting of 3 Palestinian college students
- California school district offering substitute teachers $500 per day to cross teachers' picket line
- Actor Cedric Beastie Jones Dead at 46
- Hurricane Otis makes landfall in Mexico as Category 5 storm
- Inspector general finds no fault in Park Police shooting of Virginia man in 2017
- Diamondbacks stun Phillies 4-2 in Game 7 of NLCS to reach first World Series in 22 years
- Abracadabra! The tale of 'The World’s Greatest Magician' who vanished from history
- Police: Squatters in Nashville arrested, say God told them to stay at million-dollar home
Recommendation
-
Up to 20 human skulls found in man's discarded bags, home in New Mexico
-
Michael Cohen’s testimony will resume in the Donald Trump business fraud lawsuit in New York
-
Giving up on identity with Ada Limón
-
Drugstore closures create pharmacy deserts in underserved communities
-
Bowl projections: SEC teams joins College Football Playoff field
-
Six-week abortion ban will remain in Georgia for now, state Supreme Court determines
-
Senate votes 98-0 to confirm Biden’s nominee to run the Federal Aviation Administration
-
Abracadabra! The tale of 'The World’s Greatest Magician' who vanished from history