British court allows deportations to Rwanda
The High Court in London on Monday upheld the policy for deportations of asylum seekers to Rwanda sought by the British government. The court, however, also said that each individual case must be carefully examined. Home Secretary Suella Braverman said the government would now move to implement the asylum policy as quickly as possible. The press reacts ambivalently.
This policy won't deter refugees
The ruling is unlikely to have much of an impact, The Independent says:
“It is sometimes argued that the Rwanda scheme, the ban on working and the squalid, disease-ridden, hopeless conditions in processing centres act as a deterrent to the people in the dinghies. If so, then there's not much sign of it. They are willing to put their lives on the line, and still will be after the right to asylum becomes limited by law. If the risk of drowning in the icy waters of the English Channel isn't enough to deter them, then nothing is.The only difference will be that refugees and economic migrants alike will be given an incentive to evade the authorities and melt into the countryside once they land on the beaches.”
A promising strategy
The Spectator, by contrast, believes the ruling could enable the British government to achieve the central goal of its asylum policy:
“That is, not to resettle the few hundred Channel migrants who are likely to be removed under it in the second half of next year, but to create a powerful deterrent against future irregular migrants paying large sums to people-smuggling gangs for a place in a dinghy. After all, who would hand over thousands of pounds simply to end up further away from the UK than where they started from?”
Don't leave the field to the people smugglers
The new Danish government programme makes no direct mention of asylum centres in Rwanda but the idea of outsourcing procedures along the lines of the British model has been raised. Kristeligt Dagblad finds this worthy of consideration:
“The relocation of part of the asylum procedures to so-called 'close areas' will represent a significant change in Danish immigration policy and has therefore been met with both sharp criticism and words of approval. A thorough examination of this possibility is needed so that not everything is left to people smugglers who unscrupulously send refugees and migrants on life-threatening journeys across the Mediterranean in exchange for large sums of money.”