The Rwanda scheme and the ‘Illegal’ Migration Act

“Stop talking about Rwanda, and treat everyone equally” - Young person

Lisa Matthews, Policy and Campaigns Manager, 6th March 2024

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been asking young people we work with, “What would you like to say to Rishi Sunak?”. The young people’s concerns are wide-ranging, but one issue came up time and again: Rwanda. 

Rwanda is on people’s minds, as it is in the headlines. Which is the government’s intention.  

The “Safety of Rwanda” Bill is currently being debated in the House of Lords. The Bill was introduced by the government as their latest attempt to force through the off-shoring of asylum claims – sending people who have sought safety in the UK to Rwanda. This is after the Supreme Court, the highest court in the country, ruled that the proposed scheme was unlawful, because the asylum system in Rwanda is not safe.  

The government’s intended Rwanda scheme has become a totemic part of rolling out the ‘Illegal’ Migration Act (IMA), which became law in 2023. The major, and most devastating, provisions of the IMA are yet to be brought into force: the ‘duty to remove’ adults who arrived in the UK ‘irregularly’ after 20 July 2023, and refusal to process the asylum claims (and trafficking claims, and most human rights claims) of all adults and all children who meet these criteria. This amounts to a permanent denial of asylum: it is an asylum ban for almost everyone seeking safety in the UK, because there are no safe, ‘regular’ routes to the UK for almost anyone fleeing war and persecution. 

It is widely supposed that the government is waiting for removals to Rwanda to be possible before enacting these provisions, as a duty to remove everyone who meets the IMA criteria, with no-where to remove them to, is quite a legal and political headache for them. However, even if the Rwanda scheme does happen – and there will inevitably be multiple legal challenges to removals under the scheme seeing as it has been ruled to be categorically unlawful and unsafe – it is not a practical solution to the problem the government has created for itself with this Act. Rwanda simply does not have the capacity to deal with all the people’s claims that would fall under the IMA duty to remove, and there is no removal agreement with any other country. So the government is instead creating another asylum backlog – a bureaucratic nightmare that serves no-one.

The Act is a disaster for everyone, and there are parts to it that are of particular concern for young people. Most children who arrive to claim asylum in the UK alone (and this is only those that the Home Office accept to be children, an issue on which they have a very poor track record) will be granted a short-term form of leave – their asylum claims will not be considered – only until they are 18. This legal precarity has been shown before to have deeply damaging consequences for young people, presenting practical and psychological barriers to building a new life, in education, and to engaging with the support systems they need. Some children may not even get this leave to remain – the IMA allows the government to forcibly remove Albanian children to Albania on the basis they view Albania as a safe country, which it certainly is not for all. The IMA introduces measures that make it even harder for children to challenge flawed age determination processes, and allow for the routine detention of children (which the Conservative-led government had previously ended in 2011).

The young people we work with have mostly been separated from their families and are struggling to navigate a new country and complicated systems that have enormous consequences to their safety and wellbeing. Young people need to be able to build their lives here, to cope and to thrive. Even with their “Young Roots family” around them, as so many young people describe it, young people are struggling to look to the future with the spectre of Rwanda hanging over them and with the ‘Illegal’ Migration Act threatening to take away any prospect of the safety and security that is so dearly needed.

The Rwanda policy is a deliberate attempt by this government to distract from the real problems we’re facing in this country. We know that ordinary people care about people being safe, and care about the futures of children and young people.

Contact your MP to tell them to vote against the “Safety of Rwanda” Bill when it returns to the House of Commons.