Rwanda plan ‘won’t change anything’
REFUGEE charities said the UK Government’s plan to send migrants to Rwanda has done little to deter people from making the perilous journey to the UK, as Channel crossings resumed at the weekend.
Some 254 people were detected in small boats crossing from France on Sunday after an 11-day pause in such trips. More people thought to be migrants were taken to Dover yesterday, including children, with the BBC reporting that more than 100 migrants had been brought to shore by the afternoon. The official figures for yesterday’s crossings from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) are not expected until today.
Confirmation of Sunday’s figures from the MoD came after what is believed to have been an 11-day break in activity around the Channel from April 20 to 30, when no crossings were recorded amid reports of strong winds and choppy seas.
The MoD took over control of
migrant operations in April, when the Government also announced controversial plans to send some of those making the cross-Channel journey to Rwanda.
The Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill – dubbed the anti-refugee Bill by campaigners as it makes it a criminal offence to knowingly arrive in the UK illegally and includes powers to process asylum seekers overseas – became law on Thursday.
But refugee organisations said the Bill does “nothing to address the reasons people come”, with one charity saying the majority of migrants it spoke to said the plan will not put them off crossing to the UK.
The Rwanda deal will see the east African nation receive asylum seekers deemed by the UK to be inadmissible, having arrived “illegally” under new immigration rules.
Care4Calais said that of the 64 people it surveyed, 87% had heard of the plan and 75% said “it won’t put them off crossing to the UK”.
The charity branded the Rwanda deal – which Home Secretary Priti Patel has described as a “world-first” agreement – as “just another in a long line of deterrence policies announced by this Government over the last few years”.
Care4Calais said: “Refugees have escaped from the worst horrors in this world. When you’re risking your life, what else do you have to lose? When someone explains ‘even death wouldn’t stop me’ trying to get to the UK, it’s clear that even the threat of Rwanda won’t change anything.”