Speaking to the Guardian, Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said the proposed arrangement would accommodate only a few hundred people a year, making it extremely expensive as well as illegal and discriminatory. Ministers insisted on Friday that the program would save money “in the long run”, despite the reported cost of up to .000 30,000 per person. However, government experts said the expected torrent of legal battles could make it cost much more, with some predicting it could take up to two years for someone to be relocated to Rwanda. “We are in an environment where populist governments will appeal to their right-wing, anti-immigrant sentiment” Gillian Triggs, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Home Office sources said they were preparing for judicial review and a wave of immigration courts over the legality of efforts to evacuate asylum seekers arriving after they traveled to the Channel in small boats. There are two stages to appeals for judicial review and three for those seeking to challenge their removal through an immigration court, casting more doubt on Johnson’s stated goal of deporting people to the Central African country over the next six weeks. Home Secretary Pretty Patel has signed a “ministerial directive” authorizing the implementation of the policy despite objections for spending reasons from her department’s permanent secretary. An Interior Ministry source said the ministerial order was issued because the long-term savings from the new policy “could not be quantified with certainty”, but that Patel did not want to let “the lack of accurate modeling” prevent the decision. Downing Street has said it expects thousands of asylum seekers to be relocated within the first years of the program. Triggs accused the United Kingdom of “trying to shift its weight to a developing country” and warned that the agreement signed by Patel “would not comply with the United Kingdom’s international legal responsibilities”, adding: “All indications are that will be inapplicable. ” Triggs continued: “We want to end the vulnerability of people involved in human trafficking and of course we want to stop people from drowning, but we strongly disagree with victimizing people who need protection. “Instead, there should be an increase in legal avenues for the United Kingdom.” The proposals seemed designed to attract anti-immigrant sentiment in the UK, he suggested. “We are a politically neutral, humanitarian body – it’s not really up to me to comment on politics,” Triggs said. “But we are in an environment where populist governments will appeal to the right, an anti-immigrant sentiment, and that would probably be part of it.” Two former Tories international development secretaries on Friday voiced opposition to the policy and cast doubt on whether the government would successfully fly someone to Rwanda. Rory Stewart told the Guardian that there was “a very good chance it would be a complete pie in the sky” and that he had been “rushed to distract the public” by the prime minister, who was fined by police for attending a Downing Street party violated the laws of Covid. Stewart, a minister under Theresa May, said that when he was in government, it was quite difficult to get the citizens of some countries back to their place of birth. “It is completely unusual to do that and I think the legal challenges will mean that they will not get on the planes,” he predicted. Stuart, who visited Rwanda earlier this month, said it was “one of the poorest countries on Earth” and “a very extreme environment to put people in”. Asylum seekers in the UK face the possibility of being transferred to a facility in Rwanda Conservative MP Andrew Mitchell also said it was an impossible, immoral and incredibly expensive plan. “The cost is impressive,” he told the BBC. “You will send people 6,000 miles to Central Africa – it seemed when it was debated in parliament before that it would be really cheaper to put every asylum seeker at the Ritz Hotel in London.” Triggs also warned that the United Kingdom had introduced a discriminatory approach to refugees, offering an unrestricted system for asylum seekers from Ukraine and a “draconian” system for refugees from other countries. “At the political level, we see levels of discrimination,” Triggs said. “We are deeply concerned that the proceedings appear to be discriminatory. “One of the fundamental principles of international law is the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of race or nationality or nationality.” Triggs hoped that popular support for the British housing of Ukrainian refugees would encourage the government to reconsider its proposals. He said: “We have seen an explosion of sympathy and generosity from the British people themselves. So we see this announcement as out of character with British values. “We hope that the public response will help to improve the negative aspects of this proposal with Rwanda.” Johnson also sent a letter to 150 British refugee organizations warning that the plan would “cause enormous inconvenience” and “result in more, not less, dangerous journeys – leaving more people at risk of trafficking”. The signatories, including the Joint Council on Immigrant Welfare, LGBT + refugees supporting Rainbow Migration and HOPE not Hate, said Rwanda had a “bad human rights record” and that the most vulnerable people would “raise the biggest weight”. Future legislation will be needed to include the agreement signed by the Rwandan Interior Minister earlier this week in the UK statute. Alf Dubs, a Labor Labor peer who was a refugee child, told the Guardian he expected “enough fighting for it” and that the Bishop of Durham, who is also in the House of Lords, had signaled his opposition to the policy. . saying it is “wrong in many ways”. Home Secretary Tom Pursglove has defended Rwanda’s initiative, saying it would “crush” the business model of traffickers and reduce the cost of housing all those who arrive illegally in the UK, which he said amounted to 5 5 million a year. day. He said in addition to the 120 120 million already committed to fund the program, “we will continue to make contributions to Rwanda as it handles business, in a manner similar to the amount of money we are currently spending here in the UNITED KINGDOM.” Pursglove added: “But in the long run, taking this control should help us save money. “We spend εκατο 5 million a day to accommodate people staying in hotels. “This is not sustainable and it is not acceptable and we have to put it under control.”
