When he presented the project in April 2022, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Rwanda as a country “world-renowned” for “its record of welcoming and integrating migrants”. Despite the controversy and a last-minute suspension of the European Court of Human Rights in June 2022, British MPs persist and sign. They voted on the night of Monday to Tuesday for this law which will allow London to expel migrants who arrived illegally in the United Kingdom to Rwanda.
For years, Kigali has presented itself as a land of refuge for exiles. Since 2019, the country has hosted the reception program for refugees from Libya. And, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), it hosted 135,000 refugees and asylum seekers in September 2023. But the decision of the British parliament to forcibly relocate immigrants, 6,000 kilometers from their objective, is above all a “communication coup” and a “political coup”, assures Hélène Thiollet.
The symbol more than the number
“The number of migrants concerned is insignificant compared to the migration phenomenon in the United Kingdom. These return policies are quantitatively negligible but politically extremely central,” assures the CNRS researcher and specialist in migration policies. “This policy is not designed to send asylum seekers to Rwanda en masse,” says Thomas Lacroix, research director at the CNRS and specialist in international migration.
For London, the objective is therefore to show its determination in the face of illegal immigration. Since the start of the year, illegal Channel crossings have increased by more than 20%. This Tuesday, five people drowned, including a 7-year-old girl, while trying to reach British shores. But of the nearly 30,000 people who managed to reach the country in 2023, very few could be affected by relocation to Rwanda.
A “hostile environment” for migrants
“When Theresa May was Home Secretary, she participated in a ‘hostile environment’ policy intended to make the stay of undocumented people in the UK as unbearable as possible. Poster campaigns encouraged undocumented immigrants to call a number to be accompanied on their return home. But in reality, this campaign was intended for voters,” recalls Thomas Lacroix for whom the “Rwanda law” is “in the same line.”
And, if Rishi Sunak assures that the planes for Rwanda “will take off, whatever happens”, the application of this law remains subject to numerous uncertainties. The European Court of Human Rights could intervene again, as could the British Supreme Court, which ruled last November that the initial project was illegal.
Finally, human rights groups have promised to use all possible legal remedies to combat what the director general of Amnesty International in the United Kingdom called a “national shame”. “We don’t even know if, in fact, people will be deported to Rwanda. And if they are, we know even less how they will be received,” says Hélène Thiollet.
From Kigali’s beautiful hotels to Nauru’s ‘horrendous conditions’
In the summer of 2022, Kigali had organized a communication operation to praise its renovated hotels with the aim of welcoming these displaced people. But, alongside this image from Epinal, a report from Telegraph from June 2022 reported that the refugees claimed to lack all basic resources. Food, housing, access to care, etc. “There is not much help on site because there is not enough money,” underlines Hélène Thillot.
It is difficult, in fact, to imagine “relocated” refugees easily managing to “rebuild their lives”, as promised by the former Minister of the Interior, Priti Patel, in a country which displays almost 20% unemployment. Especially since if London has promised 144 million euros to Kigali, it is not specified how much will be re-injected for the reception of immigrants. The “Rwanda law” remains so far “very vague on the implementation modalities”, underlines Hélène Thiollet.
Learn more about the “Rwanda law”
“The example that already exists is that of Australia which sends migrants to the island of Nauru. People find themselves in a prison in terrible conditions,” recalls Thomas Lacroix. According to him, if London follows Canberra’s example, “it will obviously violate the Geneva Convention”. However, if London divorced from Brussels in 2020, it remains (so far at least) under the aegis of numerous international protocols.