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The Rwanda Flooring Plan
ANNOUNCED APRIL 2022
In April 2022, the government announced plans to forcibly send certain categories of people seeking asylum to Rwanda. Instead of having their applications assessed in Britain, the process will be managed by the Rwandan government. If successful, and granted refugee status, the person will be expected to live in Rwanda.
Who could be sent to Rwanda?
Though still not clear and could be subject to change, the guidance indicates that it will apply to adults without children whose claim is deemed as inadmissible was made on or after 1 January 2022. A dangerous journey is one able or likely to cause harm or injury. For example, this would include those that travel in a small boat, or clandestinely in lorries.
What are the inadmissibility rules?
The inadmissibility rules were first introduced by the Home Office in January 2021 as a result of the UK leaving the European Union (EU)here.
Inadmissibility is defined as follows:
‘In broad terms, asylum claims may be declared inadmissible and not substantively considered in the UK, if the claimant was previously present in or had another connection to a safe third country, where they claimed protection, or could reasonably be expected to have done so, provided there is a reasonable prospect of removing them in a reasonable time to a safe third country.’
What does this mean exactly?
If it is found that someone claiming asylum in Britain passed through a country on the way to the UK where they could have, or they did apply for asylum, and they can be fairly easily removed to another country that the UK government has an agreement with, then their asylum claim will not be looked at in Britain. A process will begin to try and remove them to another country, but not necessarily the country that they passed through
When the UK was a member of the EU, it took part in an agreement called the Dublin III Regulation with other EU countries. Under this agreement the UK was able to, under certain circumstances, return migrants to an EU country that they had passed through before arriving in the UK. This agreement no longer applies to the UK because the UK left the EU after the Brexit, and the inadmissibility rules are meant to replace it.
The link between the inadmissibility rules and the Rwanda plan
What remains central is that, because the UK no longer has agreements with EU states – the countries in Europe which migrants are more likely to have passed through on their way to the UK – the Home Office cannot return migrants to the safe third countries mentioned in the inadmissibility definition.
As a result, on 14 April 2022 the UK entered into an agreement with the Rwandan government to make arrangements to remove people seeking asylum who fulfilled the ‘inadmissibility’ definition (this means they had been present in or had a connection to a safe third country) to Rwanda as another ‘safe third country’ to have their asylum claim processed there.
The intention is that if a person’s asylum claim is accepted in Rwanda, they will be offered what the agreement between the two governments is calling ‘pathways to legal residence’ in Rwanda. This agreement between the UK and Rwandan governments is called the Migration and Economic Development Partnership (MEDP).
The Home Office states that the purpose of the inadmissibility rules and Rwanda plan is to ensure the safety of people seeking asylum and to limit the activity of human traffickers and criminal gangs.
‘The inadmissibility process is intended to support safety of asylum seekers, the integrity of the border and the fairness of the asylum system, by encouraging asylum seekers to claim protection in the first safe country they reach and deterring them from making unnecessary and dangerous onward journeys to the UK.’
This is far from the reality of relocating migrants to Rwanda. The real purpose is to stop people from claiming asylum in the UK. Rwanda is rarely going to be a country that migrants pass through on their way to the UK. For many people who the UK government intends to send there, it will be a place that they have never before visited.
What remains a concern is that Rwanda has a poor human rights record and many senior officials, including the British High Commissioner to Rwanda, had warned the Home Office not to sign a deal with the country because of this.