Celebrating what he considered "a new international standard in addressing the challenges of global migration and people smuggling", UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a new plan to send off asylum seekers to Rwanda, instead of providing them with refuge in the United Kingdom.
Boris Johnson's plan which has been called the "The Rwanda Scheme" echoes similar actions taken by the government of Australia in 2012, sending refugees off to neighboring Papua New Guinea and the Republic of Nauru, and another resettlement plan implemented by Israel between 2014 and 2017.
Boris Johnson says that the UK and Rwanda have a "shared humanitarian impulse" towards refugees.
— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) April 15, 2022
Here's what happened to the refugees sent to Rwanda as part of a deal struck with the Israeli government. https://t.co/sEgio7fdHk pic.twitter.com/HdBefvZB8o
In the announcement he made on Friday, Boris Johnson outlined the new policy that will grant single men arriving in the UK illegally a one-way ticket to Rwanda, saying the plan will cost the UK government around £120m, but "save countless lives from human trafficking".
Justifying the new plan by its long-term saving money goals, Johnson failed to persuade refugee aid organizations that warned this plan will be "illegal and discriminatory" and that "it will cost the UK more money than expected".
Opposing the plan, many commentators highlighted previous plans implemented previously by Australia and Israel, stressing little to no positive impact on the lives of refugees relocated to countries with no significant difference from their home countries, especially on an economic level.
.@borisjohnson making disgusting speech trying to cover up cruel one-way ticket to Rwanda refugee plan as "quid pro-quo for generosity" and an "innovative approach...made possible by Brexit freedoms"
— Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) April 14, 2022
He’s multiplying human misery & degrading our country's values. It's just vile
Worth highlighting that Israel pioneered the 'sending refugees to Rwanda' thing. That apartheid laboratory is always the Velvet Underground & Nico of far-right policy.
— Ghostface Kafka (36 Chambers) (@thekafkadude) April 15, 2022
For example, a report by the Guardian highlighted the failure of Israel's plan in 2017, saying that efforts to deport 4,000 refugees to Rwanda and Uganda could not help asylum seekers have a decent life, as one refugee tracked many years later by Israel's Haaretz "described being destitute and living on the streets of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali".
Criticism of the Johnson's Rwanda Scheme also highlighted Rwanda's concerning human rights record, including a report by Human Rights Watch that described the plan as "cruel".
