The British Government’s plan to allow asylum seekers to be deported to Rwanda had been signed on Thursday by King Charles III, allowing the organization of repatriation flights.
This process generated a long and turbulent parliamentary debate in which the ‘conservatives’ asserted their majority in the House of Commons to make changes to key issues.
This Monday, a man left the United Kingdom, agreeing to be deported to Rwanda after his asylum application was rejected at the end of last year, according to several British media reports.
This man, who is from the African continent, traveled on a commercial flight, according to media reports.
The asylum seeker agreed to be deported to Rwanda and receive a payment of up to 3,000 pounds (3,500 euros at the current exchange rate) in return, government sources cited by the Times revealed.
Contacted by France-Presse (AFP), the Ministry of the Interior did not confirm this information.
“We can now send asylum seekers to Rwanda as part of our partnership for migration and economic development,” highlighted a government spokesperson.
“This agreement allows people without UK immigration status to be relocated to a safe third country, where they will be helped to rebuild their lives,” the source added.
The British government said today that it hopes to deport to Rwanda “by the end of the year” an already identified group of 5,700 asylum seekers, following the adoption of its controversial law aimed at discouraging illegal crossings of the English Channel.
These asylum seekers were selected from more than 57,000 people who arrived in the UK illegally through the English Channel between the beginning of January 2022 and the end of June 2023, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
The start of this operation, which arrives a few weeks ahead of schedule, coincides with the elections for local authorities, which take place on Thursday, in which the ‘conservatives’ run the risk of losing up to half of the seats they currently occupy.
The British High Court has already struck down a previous plan to carry out these transfers and campaigners have announced that they will appeal to the courts again to block them once again.
The case will probably reach the European Court of Human Rights which, in June 2022, prevented ‘in extremis’ the first deportation to Rwanda.
