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The UK’s acceptance of asylum seekers from Rwanda highlights the Government’s “fictional” claims that it is a safe country for deportations, experts have said.
i revealed on Monday that six people from Rwanda have been granted asylum in the UK since the Government signed its deportation deal with the country in April 2022.
It includes two men from Rwanda who were offered a grant of protection by the Home Office in 2022, and a woman who received the same in 2023. A further three people from Rwanda were granted asylum in Britain under the UK’s resettlement scheme in 2022 after first trying to lodge an asylum case in Kenya.
The Home Office did not disclose the reasons for granting asylum to each individual, however Government data show at least one decision was based on sexual orientation.
Experts told MPs on the Commons’ Human Rights Committee on Wednesday that the revelations posed serious questions for the Government’s Safety of Rwanda bill.
Asked whether Rwanda was a safe third country, Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “I would reference the fact that there have been individuals that have come to the UK from Rwanda.
“Rwandan nationals [have been] applying for asylum in the UK and their cases have been assessed by Home Office decision-makers, and they have been granted asylum in the UK”.
He said the fact that the UK continues to grant asylum to people from Rwanda was likely to be linked to the Home Office’s admission last week that it still has concerns around the country’s human rights record.
Buried among a 753-page cache of papers published by the Home Office last week was an acknowledgement that “while Rwanda is now a relatively peaceful country with respect for the rule of law, there are nevertheless issues with its human rights record around political opposition to the current regime, dissent and free speech”.
Lawyers told i some refugees may have been granted asylum in the UK for speaking out against the Rwandan government, pointing to recent reports that critics continue to be “harassed, intimidated, persecuted and unlawfully detained by the authorities”.
Zoe Bantleman, legal director of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA), also cited Rwandan asylum seekers in Britain as a signal that there is “a real risk people would face persecution” if they were deported there.
She told MPs on Wednesday that it formed part of “new evidence” that has come to light since the High Court ruled in December 2022 that the Rwanda plan was lawful.
The Supreme Court has since ruled unanimously that the Government’s deportation agreement with the African state is unlawful, with ministers now trying to unilaterally overrule the decision and declare Rwanda a safe third country.
Ms Bantleman cited a recent report by independent organisation Human Rights Watch warning that critics of the Rwandan regime continue to face “abusive prosecutions, enforced disappearances and have at times died in unexplained circumstances”.
“The Home Office’s statistics also show that six Rwandan nationals have been granted asylum in the UK since the memorandum of understanding was signed in April 2022,” she added.
The legal expert warned that the “mere existence” of a treaty with Rwanda “does not ensure Rwanda will comply” with international legal obligations, and that it should now be for the courts to reassess “is Rwanda actually safe now or is it purely a legal fiction as it is in the bill?”
It comes after Rishi Sunak faced the biggest revolt of his premiership on Tuesday as 60 right-wing Tory MPs rebelled against his Rwanda plan and two deputy party chairmen resigned.
The Safety of Rwanda Bill, the latest part of the deportation plan to be debated in the Commons, is designed to address last year’s Supreme Court ruling that the African country could not be considered “safe” for asylum seekers.
It aims to prevent systematic legal challenges against the policy as a whole, and to limit the ability of asylum seekers to lodge individual challenges against their deportation by requiring them to prove that doing so would cause them “serious and irreversible harm”.
Tyrone Steele, the interim legal director of the Justice charity, said it was part of ministers’ attempts to bypass the justice system and back up the “fictional” claim that Rwanda is safe third country.
He told MPs at the Human Rights Committee on Wednesday: “The Government comprehensively and in a number of ways tries to exclude the courts from looking at the facts on the ground by trying to legislate this fiction that Rwanda is safe.”
