Tag: Rwanda

Refugee report, December


Refugees and Rwanda continue to fill the headlines

December 2023

As the House of Commons debates the Government’s latest attempt to make their Rwanda project fly, this month’s emphasis has been very much on the small boats. On the progress of the Bill over the next few weeks, anything might happen. The government managed to get the second reading of their bill passed on 12th to clear the way for the plan to remove some people to Rwanda. 

As a topline figure, the number of arrivals by small boat this year has reached 29,000; this is about a third down on last year. It has been argued, however, that it’s the number of boats that is down, not people – they are using bigger boats. We have no confirmation of this.

The Government has changed the rules for asylum seekers/refugees following their processing; they now have 28 days to leave the temporary hostels they have been confined in and to find their own accommodation.  As a result the level of homelessness among this community has increased dramatically.  The Evening Standard claims that the numbers of homeless in the migrant community has increased 39% in a month (presumably this is a London figure).

The big increase in the number of claimant withdrawals has been exercising the legal profession.  These are migrants who have claimed refugee or asylum seeker status, but have not turned up for interview.  As a result, 17,000 claimants who have apparently withdrawn their claim are now unaccounted for, though presumably they are still in the UK (the Home Office has no knowledge of their whereabouts).  On a similar topic, of the 154 unaccompanied child asylum seekers who went missing earlier this year, 132 are still missing.

While the number of legacy cases is being reduced, new claims are still keeping the total high.  The Government’s aim of clearing the pre-June 2022 backlog has not yet been achieved (it’s believed to be still about 10,000, and these are among the most complicated cases).  Meanwhile, new applications have amounted to 90,000, leaving the total figure at around 109,000 (less than the peak).  It should be noted that Home Office staff turnover is very high and it may well be that the 17,000 alluded to above include names taken off the backlog to reduce the figures.  Also the Home Affairs Committee this week elicited the information that approval levels went down to 38% in Q2 and back up to 67% in Q3 – the reason is unclear.

Small boats population accounts for around 6.6% of the total

It is worth pointing out, as part of the argument, that the small boats population amounts to about 6.6% of the net immigration numbers for the year (the 700,000 excess of arrivals v departures) figure) and half that for the gross total (incomers only)

Another problem area has been the gap between a claimant being granted leave and receiving a Biometric Residence Permit – the Home Office claim not to know how long the average wait in limbo is.

The apparent suicide of an asylum seeker on the Bibby Stockholm has drawn attention to the cost of the barge, currently estimated at £22 million.  The number of boat people on board is not known, but is believed to be around 200 currently.

On the issue of potential refugees from Gaza, the request in October from various refugee organisations in the UK to the Government to come up with a scheme for taking numbers on, as was done with Ukraine, does not appear to have been acted upon as yet.

Finally, a survey by Labour List this week invited respondents to say how many arrivals had actually been removed to Rwanda.  The percentage saying, correctly, none was 48%.

Andrew Hemming

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Plan to block HRA


Plan to disapply the Human Rights Act reported

November 2023

A report in the Guardian suggests the government proposes to disapply the HRA and block its use to enable the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda. This follows the Supreme Court’s decision last week that Rwanda is not a safe country and individuals sent there would be at risk of refoulement. The government is under considerable pressure from the right of the party and in particular the ‘New’ Conservatives jointly led by Danny Kruger MP who is the member for Devizes in Wiltshire.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/19/rishi-sunak-could-block-key-human-rights-law-force-through-rwanda-asylum-plan

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Human Rights Watch on UK events


HRW comments on the extraordinary events yesterday in the UK

November 2023

This is a piece from today’s (16 November) from HRW.

A Welcome Decision in the UK Regular Daily Brief readers may recall our story on the UK government’s obsession with cruelty, shown by its intention to ship asylum seekers to Rwanda, a country with a terrible rights record. I’m happy to report a good-news update to this story: yesterday, the UK Supreme Court said Rwanda is not a safe country for the government’s plans.

As my UK colleague Emilie McDonnell writes, the decision was “a huge victory that will protect the rights of countless people who have come to the UK seeking safety.” In a unanimous judgment, the UK’s highest court drew attention to Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including threats to Rwandans living in the UK, alongside extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances, torture, and restrictions on media and political freedoms.

The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has responded by vowing to introduce emergency legislation “to confirm Rwanda is safe. ”Instead of arguing with reality, he would be wiser to ditch the government’s unlawful Rwanda deal.
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Refugees and Rwanda


Government still in difficulty with refugees and its Rwanda policy

October 2023

Immigration remains a key issue for both the government and the opposition and the focus is on the large number of Channel crossings from France. The prime minister has pledged to end the crossings, however they continue to come in large numbers. The government spent considerable time trying to find countries willing to take migrants and eventually found Rwanda to which £145m was paid to set up the necessary reception facilities. The planned first flight ended when the European Court found against the deportations because under article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights, there is an absolute ban on the use of torture and other serious mistreatment of which there is considerable evidence that it takes place in that country.

In a Country Report by the US Department of State in 2022, there is an extremely long list of problems with human rights in Rwanda. They include: unlawful or arbitrary killings; torture or cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment by the government; harsh and life threatening prison conditions and arbitrary detentions. Their activities also extend overseas and in particular in the Democratic Republic of the Congo which include killings, kidnapping and violence. The report also lists a range of activities against the media and journalists. There are similar reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. Altogether it paints a picture of a country which is a stranger to human rights and where violence and repression are a way of life.

Daniel Trilling in his ‘long read’ in today’s Guardian newspaper (5 October) Inside the Rwanda deportation plan: there were so many warnings it would fail. How did it get this far? traces the whole story of where the idea came from and how it got stuck after the European Court ended it at least temporarily. The proposal was meant to act as a deterrent to further Channel crossings. This was never likely to have been the case since people willing to risk their lives in a rubber dingy having paid considerable sums to a smuggler are sufficiently desperate not to heed any such threat even if they were aware of it.

He reveals that the Foreign Office said ‘no’ to Rwanda largely because of the sort of reasons listed above. They were aware of the UN putting pressure on Rwanda to stop its troops engaging in mass killings and rape in DRC. Officials from the Foreign Office were preparing Country Policy and Information Notes CPIN, which were unfinished at the time the decision was taken.

The government was embarrassed when an undercover report secretly filmed Johnson Busingye, the high commissioner for Rwanda saying disobliging things about the UK government such as it was “immoral for the British to claim to be a compassionate country”. Asked about the shooting of twelve refugees he replied “so what”.

The Supreme Court is due to rule at the end of the year and it is likely that the prime minister Rishi Sunack will ignore the European Court if it rules in the government’s favour.

It is hard to fathom the reasoning behind the government’s position on this policy. It was designed to be a deterrent but it was advised by its own officials that this was unlikely to be effective. The numbers of immigrants who would be sent is a matter of a few thousand which, in the face of the many thousands crossing the Channel and the tens of thousands languishing in immigration centres and hotels, will be a tiny proportion. They must have been aware of the copious evidence that the country was entirely unsuitable as a place to send vulnerable people. They must also have known that Israel abandoned the very same policy and the Danish government had put its policy on hold.

At the Conservative conference this week, the prime minister cancelled the next leg of the HS2 rail project claiming that ‘the facts had changed’ and this prompted a change in policy. Yet in the case of Rwanda, the facts haven’t exactly changed but have been visible all the while. It is though the policy – described as ‘shameful’ by Amnesty International’ chief executive – has become totemic existing in a space beyond reason and facts, a kind of belief system which defies rational thinking. Partly it is because the prime minister has made stopping the boats a key policy aim and Rwanda is central to that, a policy which cannot be cancelled for fear of looking weak. If flights take place at the end of the year it will cause considerable suffering to those sent there.

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Salisbury group member appears in national paper


Salisbury group member Lesley appears in a montage on the front page of the Long Read in the Guardian, 5 October

October 2023

An article in the Long Read section of the Guardian newspaper entitled Inside the Rwanda deportation plan has a photo montage in which group member Lesley features holding two banners.

The article is by Daniel Trilling and is a detailed review of the muddle, confusion and dissembling behind the government’s desire to send unwanted migrants to Rwanda.

We received word that the first deportation flight in June was to take off from Boscombe Down, a secure airfield near Amesbury in Wiltshire. It had been moved from Stanstead at the last moment to ward off potential protests and because it is surrounded by barbed wire fencing. Two Salisbury group members were able to make it to the airfield where there was a large contingent of police officers and a bevy of cameras. The photo was taken by one of the photographers. As you know, while we waited for the take-off, a final appeal to Europe meant the flight was cancelled hence the fury about the European Court and threats to take us out of the jurisdiction of the Court to enable future deportations to take place.

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Exiting the European Court possible


Some Conservative politicians again calling for the UK to exit the European Court

August 2023

The issue of the small boat crossings continues to generate considerable passions amongst many in the Conservative party in particular and in sections of the media. This week, the first of the asylum seekers arrived on the barge, Bibby Stockholm, moored at Portland with many local protests, concerns about fire safety and legal protests in train. The response to the protests and appeals from the deputy chair of the Conservative party, Lee Anderson, broke new ground when he said that if they weren’t happy with the accommodation they should ‘f–k off back to France.’ When interviewed on GB News he declined to withdraw the remark and he has received support from others in the party.

Part of the frustration that some feel is possibly based on the misunderstanding about the Court and its relationship with Europe. Brexit was largely based on a desire to regain our sovereignty and the fact that the Court has nothing to do with the EU has come as a surprise and disappointment to those who believed it did. When the Court stepped in to stop the first flight to Rwanda a year ago from Boscombe Down airfield (a mile or so away from where this is being written) it generated considerable fury and with it the threat to leave the aegis of the Court.

If we did leave the Court, we would join Belarus and Russia, hardly exemplars of sound government or decent human rights. It would, as one of the key proponents of the Court in the ’50s, be a great blow to our international standing. There are many in the Conservative party who recognise this.

In many respects, the problem of Channel crossings is as a result of successful policies elsewhere to prevent other forms of crossing. Channel ports are now surrounded with razor wire and boarding and aeroplane is now a major exercise in logistics and checking of details. Legal routes barely exist and the ability of someone to claim asylum in their own country is all but impossible. Getting on a boat is almost the only way.

The ECHR is a threat to British democracy

Daily Telegraph, 10 August

In previous posts we have commented on many aspects of the government’s policy and how exporting people to Rwanda – tried and abandoned by Israel – will be of limited utility. Hundreds will be deported, if it comes into being, while the backlog is in the tens of thousands. Ascension Island is also being rumoured: another expensive and impractical solution.

On 18 July, the government passed the Illegal Migration Bill which means those who arrive by crossing the Channel will not be able to claim asylum. This is likely to be a breach of the Refugee Convention, hence the call to exit the ECHR.

Such is the desire of those to escape war or persecution that threats to send them to Rwanda or place them on a barge off the south coast are unlikely to be a deterrent. The continued failure to stem the flow of crossings represents a major political problem for the government. Oafish comments by the party’s deputy chair are in a way a symptom of the frustration felt in the face of this huge, and in many respects insoluble problem.

It is a pity that the connections between causes and results is not discussed more. The coup in Niger is the latest example of a desire to grab mineral resources. Western countries along with China and Russia, are desperate to secure supplies of these resources and the rights of people who get in the way are nearly always ignored. We are happy for the City of London for example to fund companies and to enable the vast wealth to be routed through the city. We pay little attention to the ‘front end’ so to speak and the activities of corporations in their thirst for rare earths, oil, gold, uranium or other commodities. The resulting conflicts and displacement of peoples, some of whom end up on the northern coast of France, suddenly results in angst and furious editorials in our tabloids. A man reaps what he sows as the Bible tells us. Perhaps if government spent more time concerning itself with the activities of our mining and resource companies then fewer would be forced from their homes and land, dispossessed or otherwise maltreated and fewer would end up at Calais and thence onto a boat. Fewer then would need to f–k of back to France.

UPDATE: 12 August 2023. Migrants taken off the barge because of the risk of Legionnaires disease (11th). Ascension Island no longer an option it is reported.

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Rwanda: the morality question


How moral is the plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda?

July 2023

The wish by the government to deport asylum seekers and refugees to Rwanda has consumed considerable political capital and is a topic rarely out of the news. It is the flip side of the problem of people arriving by small boats across the Channel which causes so much fury in sections of the media. The extreme difficulty in applying for asylum from outside the UK is only occasionally mentioned. Legal routes have all but been closed off forcing those seeking asylum to engage in perilous journeys. According to ex prime minister Boris Johnson however, writing for the Daily Mail in his new job, said there are ‘numerous safe and legal routes for people to come to Britain’. His argument is that once word gets round the ‘camp fires’ of northern France that there is a chance of being sent to Rwanda, the business model of the smugglers will be broken (We must take radical action to get Rwanda done!) 30 June*.

This raises a moral question which is that the idea of deportation and treating them badly is to use people as a matter of policy. It is using deportation as a kind of punishment for a class of people no matter what the legitimacy of their claim might be. It is also logically unsound since it will be the refugees who will suffer and end up in Rwanda, not the people smugglers. The likelihood of the policy deterring the smugglers has been challenged recently in an impact assessment report which notes that the Home Office had little evidence to show that it might work. Academics say that it is issue of culture, kinship and language which are important factors and changing the rules has little effect.

Stopping the boats – assuming that to be possible – does not stop the problem. War, persecution, climate and poverty are among the factors which force people to leave their homes and embark on long, perilous journeys to seek asylum.

It has been pointed out that Rwanda is not the best of countries as far as human rights are concerned. There is little freedom of expression. Journalists are harassed and intimidated and opposition leaders find it hard to make headway. Bloggers and lawyers are intimidated and sometimes unlawfully detained. What has not been commented on however is that the deportation policy crucially depends on Rwanda being a safe place for us to send refugees and it will be extremely difficult for the UK government to stop the deportations if evidence of mistreatment by police or security forces in Rwanda subsequently emerges. It will also be difficult and embarrassing for the government to criticise President Kagame for any infringements of evidence of bad treatment. Having invested so much political capital in the policy, to admit the country is not in fact safe will be extremely awkward.

Refugees will find it hard to settle in the country as did those who went their as part of the – now abandoned – Israeli scheme. Perhaps the enthusiasm for the schemes owes something to several Australians who act in advisory roles in Downing Street. The Australians sent their asylum seekers to islands in the Pacific in a much criticised scheme.

Public attitudes toward refugees seems slowly to be changing and a recent IPSOS poll showed the UK to have one of the most positive attitudes towards immigrants at 56%. The numbers wanting our borders closed totally has declined. 54% wanted immigrants to stay. This despite the relentless rhetoric in the tabloid press.

Government attitudes seem to have hardened by contrast and ‘stopping the boats’ is one of the prime minister’s five pledges. In the i newspaper on Saturday (2 July) there was speculation that the government is considering leaving the European Court of Human Rights to enable it to overcome the courts’ objections to the deportations.

In all the commentary, the political jousting in the Commons and the seemingly relentless articles in the media, the moral argument seems seldom to emerge. The boat people are treated as though they are almost criminal and there is even an attempt to besmirch the RNLI for rescuing them in the Channel: RNLI a Migrant taxi service claims the Daily Mail (1 July*). Deportation is to be used as an instrument of deterrence.

Some indeed might be economic migrants and not ‘real’ asylum seekers. But a large proportion are desperate people fleeing desperate circumstances and need our help. We have a moral and legal obligation to hear their appeals. It is a great shame that the voices of intolerance have such salience in our media and in some members of the government.

*Articles accessed 3 July

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Rwanda flights ‘unlawful’


High Court rules flights to Rwanda unlawful

June 2023

The High Court has today (29 June) ruled by a majority, that the planned flights to Rwanda are not legal. This has been a key element of the government’s policy and the first flights due to go out in June last year from Boscombe Down near Salisbury, were halted at the last minute following a ruling by the European Court deciding it breached article 3 rights against torture and bad treatment.

The case hinged on whether it is safe for asylum seekers and others to be sent to this African country. Both UNHCR and Amnesty International have expressed doubts and concerns about what life is like and the safety of those sent there. In its 22/23 report Amnesty had concerns about the asylum process procedure, the risks of detention and deportation, discrimination against members of the LGBTIQ+ community and inadequate legal representation.

Plane waiting at Boscombe Down airfield in June 2022 but which left empty. Photo: Salisbury Amnesty

There is limited freedom of expression, bloggers and journalists are harassed, persecuted, intimidated and sometimes unlawfully detained. Although the country has made promises to improve as part of the deal with the Home Office, serious doubts remain about how genuine these might be.

A report last week noted that the costs of sending individuals to Rwanda were excessive at around £170,000 per person and they also doubted the deterrent effects of the policy – a key element behind why the government wishes to do it. Altogether, the government’s policies on immigration and asylum are looking threadbare. They plan to appeal the decision. Both the prime minister and Suella Braverman have been critical of it.

Sources: BBC; UNHCR; Daily Mail, Guardian

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Conservatives and the ECHR


Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, wants to take the UK out of the ECHR

December 2022

This post is based on an interesting article in yesterday’s Guardian newspaper, written by Martin Kettle, concerning the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman’s desire to take the UK out of the European Court of Human Rights. Some of the piece concerned his thoughts of the future of Rishi Sunak which is a political discussion upon which we do not comment. Our concerns focus on human rights implications of Braverman’s wishes to take the UK out of the purview of the ECHR.

Kettle notes that the proposed withdrawal is not Conservative Party policy, nor was is it in the latest manifesto in 2019. This indicates that Ms Braverman is operating on her own. The Home Secretary is one of a number of Conservatives (but by no means all) who see the ECHR as a kind of constraint to their ability to manage the nation’s affairs most particularly in connection with refugees and immigration.

This erupted a few months ago with the last minute abandonment of the flight to Rwanda (which was to take place a stones throw from where this post is written), in which the European Court played a key part. Immigrants crossing the Channel in small boats has been a regular news feature over many months and has caused considerable anger among many. As was noted in our last post, by denying safe and legal means to apply to come here, those desperate to escape war or persecution are more or less forced to use these means. When Suella Braverman was questioned about this last week in front of a select committee, neither she nor her PPS, were able to able to provide a convincing answer.

Kettle goes on to say that the arguments around human rights law “encapsulates and stimulates the Tory party’s haphazard retreat into a bubble of English exceptionalism. Whether it is expressed by Braverman or Dominic Raab, the common threads of this are a bogus sense of victimhood (exemplified by the delusion that Britain is uniquely affected by migration) and belief in greatness frustrated (the lies of Brexit) and an impatience with conventional wisdom in favour of reckless contrarianism”.

One of the party’s electoral strengths over many decades was that it claimed to be the party of law and order. Tougher and longer sentencing, crackdowns on this or that crime, support for the police and other actions enabled it to claim that they were the party to vote for if you wanted to sleep safely in your bed at night. Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General, has noted that today’s ministers seem to display ‘a persistent and almost endemic frustration with legal constraints‘. A combination of rage by some sections of the media about the Channel crossings, combined with their large majority, seems to lead them to believe they can ignore domestic law, international laws and treaties. Laws which stand in the way of ministers pursuing a particular goal are fit only to be ignored or discarded.

In his recent talk to the Judicial Institute (6 December 2022) he refers to the ‘novel constitutional position: that governments are enjoying the confidence of a parliamentary majority have essentially a popular mandate to do whatever they like and that any obstruction of this is unacceptable’ (p10). He points out that this is not the monopoly of the Conservatives – Labour when in power went cold on the HRA and secretly aided American renditions post 9/11. This idea that the law is of value only if it suits the policy position of the government in power is a dangerous one. It goes against the Common Law principle which is key our unwritten constitution. Combined with a belief that a large majority means the public at large are at one with this is also an assumption too far. When there was a Daily Mail assault on the judges putting their photos on the front page under a headline ‘Enemies of the People’ (4 December 2016), because they took a decision their editor did not like, it was noticeable that the then Attorney General, Liz Truss, did not condemn this.

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Refugee report


November 2022

This is a report on the current situation with refugees, a topic which is causing a great deal of political heartache at present. We are grateful to group member Andrew for the work in compiling this.

Into November and Suella Braverman is back as Home Secretary, which will have implications for refugees and asylum seekers. The plan to send failed asylum seekers to Rwanda has been shelved (and the companies contacted to carry the deportees have all withdrawn or refused), but the Prime Minister has declared himself in favour of the plan.  In his campaign to lead his party he also put forward a 10-point plan on immigration designed to increase the number of deportations. Possible new locations have been posited – Belize, Paraguay and Peru have been named, but all have declared themselves not to be discussing the matter.  Hi Fly and Iberojet are still possible carriers but are under pressure to decline. The future of the scheme remains questionable, as the High Court has still to decide on its lawfulness.

There has been much debate about the numbers of Albanians arriving in the UK in recent months, and particularly about the number claiming to have been trafficked. The Home Office have argued that a) economic migrants have been using this as an excuse and b) Albania is not a state which has security issues.  The Albanian Prime Minister has also attacked the UK government for denigrating his country, but it remains that a large percentage of Albanian claimants have been accepted as genuine. Discussions between the countries continue.  It is worth noting that the countries most detainees assumed to be involved with trafficking are Albania, Eritrea and Iran.

The continuing arrival of refugees and asylum seekers on small boats remains in the news.  With nearly 40,000 arrivals this year, the chief problem is processing the newcomers.  Events at the Manston short term holding facility have been much reported on, but numbers now have dropped back towards a more ”normal” 1600 staying 24 hours, rather than 4000 detained for weeks.  The facility is intended to process all arrivals, not just refugees.  The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration has been checking conditions here and at hotels used by the Home Office to house new arrivals, and concerns have been expressed that these are not fit to house unaccompanied children.

The IPPR say that the increase in numbers arriving on small boats (which was none in 2018!) is likely due to “a combination of increased securitisation among other routes (e.g. lorries), the UK’s withdrawal from the Dublin regulation and a “snowball effect”’.  The Dublin Regulation made it possible to return arrivals to their first point of landing in the EU, but the UK can no longer employ the provision since Brexit.

On the last day of 2019, there were 307 individuals held in prisons under immigration powers.  By the last day of 2020 this had increased to 519, and a year later it was 602.  As of January 2022 that figure stood at 304, three times the amount it was in 2019.

For an overall perspective on numbers, it is worth noting that the UNHCR estimates the global number of refugees at 21.3 million, plus 4.6 million asylum seekers.  1 .4 million claims for asylum are pending, of which 0.5% are in the UK (for comparison, about half the number for Germany).

Over 90% of people referred to the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) from immigration detention are victims of trafficking, says a new report.  The referrals into the NRM by ‘first responders’ included survivors of slavery, trafficking and torture. Rule 34 stipulates that every detained person must have a mental and physical examination within 24 hours of admission to an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) – however, survivors have often been overlooked

The Home Office routinely detains people who are subject to immigration control, the majority of whom are released.  However, under the Home Office Detention Centre rules, a person has to undergo screening to be ‘fit’ for detention, as well as to identify survivors of trafficking and modern slavery.

A report by the Helen Bamber Foundation, a charity that helps survivors of trafficking and torture, found that survivors are detained either after imprisonment, with many having being convicted for offences they were forced to commit by their traffickers, and/or because they do not have permission to remain in the UK.  Many survivors of trafficking are detained for removal after being picked up during raids on brothels, nail bars and cannabis farms.

The biggest problem with asylum seekers, however, is still the delay in processing arrivals.  As a measure of the extent of the backlog, on the last day of 2019, there were 307 individuals held in prisons under immigration powers.  By the last day of 2020 this had increased to 519, and a year later it was 602.  As of January 2022 that figure stood at 304, three times the amount it was in 2019.  In terms of delays in the system, Home Office figures show that in 2015 80% of cases were decided within 6 months.  By 2018, this had fallen to 56% and by 2022 to 7%.  96% of 2021 arrivals have not yet got an assessment.

Other continuing issues include extending the offer to Ukrainian applicants for refugee status (very few are claiming asylum status) for another year. 140,000 visas have been issued so far, just under half the total (Hong Kong accounts for another quarter).

Amnesty is planning to ring fence much of its income before the end of the year to support its campaign in Ukraine. This is explained in the monthly newsletter.

AH

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