Suella Braverman refuses to set a deadline for the first deportations to the East African country.
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman says she is confident Rwanda is a safe country for the resettlement of asylum seekers, but has refused to set a deadline for the first deportations there.
The British government hopes to send thousands of asylum seekers more than 6,500 km (4,000 miles) away to the East African country as part of a £120 million ($148 million) deal to deter people from crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.
The plan was announced last April, but the first deportation flight was blocked by an order from the European Court of Human Rights.
London’s High Court ruled in December that the scheme was legal, but opponents are seeking to appeal the ruling.
Britain last month released details of legislation that would ban the entry of asylum seekers arriving in small boats. It would prevent them from seeking asylum and would aim to expel them to their home country or to so-called safe third countries.
Some charities said the proposed law could be impractical and criminalize the efforts of thousands of refugees.
Home Secretary Braverman was questioned by the BBC about a violent protest against rations at a camp in Rwanda in 2018 that left at least five refugees dead, according to Rwandan police.
Braverman said she was unfamiliar with that case but had “strong ground” in saying Rwanda was a safe country, adding that it was the right solution to Britain’s small boat problem .
“We’re looking at 2023 and beyond,” she said on Sunday. “The Supreme Court – senior expert judges – has examined the details of our arrangement with Rwanda and has determined that it is a safe country and that our arrangements are lawful.”
Braverman, who visited Rwanda last month, did not want to give a deadline for the departure of the first flight.
“We have to be realistic,” she told Sky News. “We had a very strong victory in the Supreme Court against Rwanda at the end of last year. We have now introduced legislation. We want to move as soon as possible to move people from the UK to Rwanda.”
Braverman also told the BBC that ministers are looking at “all sorts
land and sites and ships” to house asylum seekers in the UK, but did not say whether the government was close to signing a deal on
buy a barge.
“We talk to a lot of operators, a lot of owners of a lot of different types of real estate across the country. We announced sites earlier this week,” she said.
“Those are sites where we have a certain level of confidence that we can be public about those sites,” she said. “We aim to roll out these sites very quickly and make them suitable for housing purposes and move people to those sites for asylum purposes.”
