Nita Bhalla, Lin Taylor. Migrants are escorted into Dover harbour, after being rescued while attempting to cross the English Channel, in Dover, Britain, August 24, Britain's parliament has approved Rishi Sunak's plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, which he wants to launch by July. The " Safety of Rwanda" bill aims to cut immigration by deterring migrants from arriving without permission, but refugee rights groups say it criminalises genuine asylum seekers, and Britain's Supreme Court ruled last year that the East African nation was not a safe country to send people.
Sunak has invested huge political capital in the Rwanda scheme , promising that it will stop tens of thousands of people arriving without permission in small boats across the Channel.
The new legislation , approved by lawmakers on Tuesday, is expected to receive royal assent from King Charles later this week and then will become law. Sunak promised the first flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda will leave in weeks. But whether the Rwanda scheme does finally get off the ground remains far from certain.
Charities and rights groups say they will try to stop individual deportations and the trade union which represents border force staff is promising to argue the new law is unlawful "within days" of the first asylum seekers being informed they will be sent to Rwanda. Introduced in , Australia's offshoring asylum programme specifically targets migrants arriving in Australian waters by boat and is aimed at discouraging refugees from making dangerous ocean crossings and stopping people smuggling.
Asylum seekers have been transferred to offshore detention centres in Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and the South Pacific island nation of Nauru for their claims to be processed. The policy - known as the "Pacific Solution" - was dismantled in , but it was revived in and became more restrictive in , when the government said people arriving by boat would be denied resettlement, even if recognised as refugees.
