Britain defends embattled plan to send migrants to Rwanda

LONDON (AP):

With the first plane set to take off Tuesday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson emphatically defended Britain’s plan to send asylum-seekers of various nationalities to Rwanda, despite an outcry from the United Nations, human rights activists and religious leaders.

“We are going to get on and deliver” the plan, Johnson declared, arguing that the move is a legitimate way to protect lives and thwart the criminal gangs that smuggle migrants across the English Channel in small boats.

The prime minister announced an agreement with Rwanda in April in which people who enter Britain illegally will be deported to the East African country. In exchange for accepting them, Rwanda will receive millions of pounds (dollars) in development aid. The deportees will be allowed to apply for asylum in Rwanda, not Britain.

Johnson’s government this week beat back a series of legal challenges seeking to block the first deportation flight.

Opponents have argued that it is illegal and inhumane to send people thousands of miles to a country they don’t want to live in. Britain in recent years has seen an illegal influx of migrants from such places as Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, Sudan, Iraq and Yemen.

Activists have denounced the policy as an attack on the rights of refugees that most countries have recognised since the end of World War II.

The UN refugee agency, Church of England bishops and, according to British news reports, Prince Charles are among those condemning the plan amid concern other countries will follow suit as war, repression and natural disasters force a growing number of people from their homes.

Politicians in Denmark and Austria are considering similar proposals. Australia has operated an asylum-processing centre in the Pacific island nation of Nauru since 2012.

“At a global level, this unapologetically punitive deal further condones the evisceration of the right to seek asylum in wealthy countries,” said Maurizio Albahari, a migration expert at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

The first deportation flight was scheduled to leave Britain late Tuesday, though it was unclear how many people would be on board. British media reported that individual appeals had whittled down the number of potential deportees to seven from more than 31 on Friday.

Many millions of people around the globe have been displaced over the past two decades, putting the international consensus on refugees under strain. The world had more than 26 million refugees in the middle of last year, more that double the number two decades ago, according to the UN refugee agency. Millions more have left their homes voluntarily, seeking economic opportunities in developed nations.