Statement on Government plans to offshore people seeking refuge
For Immediate Release
The newly announced partnership between the UK and Rwandan Governments to send people seeking refuge to detention centres in Rwanda is utterly appalling.
We understand that people will be assessed on arrival and, if determined to be economic migrants, sent to Rwanda – although there is no information available about how such a determination will be made. Given that the current rate of appeal against Home Office determinations of the right to asylum is around 77%, it appears unlikely that this new procedure will be successful in accurately assessing whether people are at risk.
That it will only be males who will be sent to Rwanda speaks volumes about how safe the Government assesses the situation there to be, whilst raising significant concerns about the prospects for LGBT+ people seeking refuge being sent to a Country known for its discriminatory culture.
While these assessments are taking place people will be housed in “reception centres”, which are apparently based on the reception centres in Greece and will see people having to adhere to strict regulations or risk losing their right to claim asylum. The mass accommodation centres already open such as Napier Barracks in Kent and Penally Camp in Wales, as well as the existing Immigration Removal Centres such as the infamous Yarls Wood, already show that the Home Office is unable to safely and effectively run these types of centres.
“The idea that it is safe, legal, moral or cost effective to offshore people seeking asylum is just unbelievable. The people we support across East Sussex are not economic migrants, they are forced out of their homes, running from war and persecution. That the UK will be putting traumatised, terrified and vulnerable people on planes and flying them thousands of miles away rather than facing up to our humanitarian responsibility to offer them a home here is totally unacceptable.”
We have continuously advocated for the use of in-community accommodation only rather than these types of centres which are inhumane and not at all conducive to people seeking refuge thriving in their new communities.
This partnership is also incredibly expensive – charities estimate the cost of offshore facilities to be in the region of £1.4billion and Andrew Mitchell, the former Conservative International Development Secretary has publicly stated that “it would be cheaper to put each one in the Ritz”.
At a time of devastating cost of living crisis in this country, this unprecedented waste of taxpayers’ money is an insult to the public who are struggling to make ends meet.
The Refugee Buddy Project: Hastings Rother & Wealden calls on the Government to reverse this decision immediately, to listen to its own backbenchers as well as the cross-party coalition in the Lords who have repeatedly voted against their Nationality and Borders Bill and to start to rebuild an immigration system based on solidarity, dignity and justice, not fear and isolationism.