Boris Johnson’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is slammed by the UN’s refugee agency

The Government announced this week it plans to provide failed asylum seekers, including those crossing the Channel in small boats, with a one-way ticket to Rwanda, where they will have the right to apply to live in the African country

Gillian Triggs, a UNHCR assistant secretary-general, said the agency ‘strongly condemns outsourcing the primary responsibility to consider the refugee status’, as proposed by the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Priti Patel.

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Boris Johnson’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda has today been slammed as an ‘egregious breach of international law’ and ‘really unacceptable’ by the United Nation’s refugee agency. Pictured: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson visits the command room at the ‘Maritime rescue coordination centre’ in Dover, Britain, April 14, 2022

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Migrants travelling to the UK on small boats will be put on jets and sent to Rwanda while their applications are processed. Pictured: A map detailing the plan proposed by the Prime Minister

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Pictured: Migrants wait to disembark at the Port of Dover after being rescued while crossing the English Channel near Dover, April 15, 2022

Put to her that Australia had effectively deployed a similar tactic to cut migration numbers, Ms Triggs said: ‘My point is, just as the Australian policy is an egregious breach of international law and refugee law and human rights law, so too is this proposal by the United Kingdom Government.

‘It is very unusual, very few states have tried this, and the purpose is primarily deterrent – and it can be effective, I don’t think we’re denying that.

‘But what we’re saying at the UN refugee agency is that there are much more legally effective ways of achieving the same outcome.’

She said attempting to ‘shift responsibility’ for asylum seekers arriving in Britain was ‘really unacceptable’.

Ms Triggs pointed out that Israel had attempted to send Eritrean and Sudanese refugees to Rwanda, but that they ‘simply left the country and started the process all over again’.

‘In other words, it is not actually a long-term deterrent,’ she added.

In response to the UNHCR, the Home Office insisted to the MailOnline that ‘Rwanda is a fundamentally safe and secure country with a track record of supporting asylum seekers.’ It noted that the UNHCR has previously sad the country is safe for refugees.

‘Under this agreement, Rwanda will process claims in accordance with the UN Refugee Convention, national and international human rights laws, and will ensure their protection from inhuman and degrading treatment or being returned to the place they originally fled,’ the Home Office’s statement said.

‘There is nothing in the UN Refugee Convention which prevents removal to a safe country’,’ it added.

Mr Johnson last night pledged the first flights could take off within just six weeks, and said he would do ‘whatever it takes’ to push through his landmark scheme to tackle the small-boats crisis in the Channel and smash people trafficking gangs.

Revealing details of the dramatic strategy, Mr Johnson said ‘tens of thousands’ of Channel migrants would be sent to the East African nation – 4,000 miles away.

The Daily Mail understands the first flight is expected to leave before the end of next month – and the scheme will be back-dated to cover all those who have arrived in the UK since the start of the year.

Meanwhile on Friday, at least 50 migrants arrived in the UK by boat on the first official day of Navy patrols in the Channel.

Between 25 and 30 migrants reached the Dover harbour, Kent around 2.30am Friday morning before a second group, of around 30 people, was escorted to shore on board Border Force cutter Valiant shortly before 10am.

The Home Office and the MoD are yet to confirm the official number of migrants to arrive in the UK today, or on Wednesday or Thursday – but it is thought more than 1,000 people made the perilous crossing.

According to official Home Office figures, at least 4,617 people have reached the UK by small boat so far this year but recent arrivals could bring the total number of migrant crossings for 2022 to more than 5,500.