UK Sends First Failed Asylum Seeker to Rwanda

Facts

• The UK government has reportedly paid a failed asylum seeker approximately £3K ($3.7K) to leave the country and relocate to Rwanda voluntarily.¹
• The unnamed individual was flown to Kigali via a commercial airline on Monday as part of a voluntary scheme. This is the first time the UK has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country.²
• The news comes after the UK parliament passed the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week, enabling the deportation of asylum seekers — who have arrived illegally in the UK — to the East African country.³
• Though the UK Supreme Court ruled that the Rwanda policy was unlawful, the UK government passed the bill declaring Rwanda a 'safe third country' for asylum seekers.⁴
• The UK Home Office has confirmed that the first set of illegal migrants intended to be forcibly removed to Rwanda has now been detained, with deportation flights expected to begin sometime in the next nine to 11 weeks.⁵
• In 2023, at least 29.4K people reportedly made attempts to the UK illegally via small boats crossing the English Channel, down from a record high of nearly 45.8K in 2022. So far in 2024, nearly 6.3K have made the journey.⁶

Sources: ¹The Sun, ²Independent, ³Verity, ⁴BBC News (a), ⁵GOV.UK and ⁶BBC News (b).

Narratives

• Right narrative, as provided by Spectator (UK). The voluntary deportation of a failed asylum seeker to Rwanda is a symbolic victory for the UK government. However, with pressure to fulfill the promise of ending the influx of illegal migration ramping up, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak must make sure that his forcible deportation policy begins to see similar success.
• Left narrative, as provided by Huffington Post. The voluntary scheme is completely different from the controversial Rwanda plan. Despite the UK government's best attempts to portray the deportation as a victory, the reality of the expensive gimmick is clear. Paying asylum seekers £3K of taxpayers' money for leaving the country will neither stop the boats nor fix the UK's border crisis.

Predictions