UK: Asylum treaty with Rwanda is a 'gross political fantasy'

In response to the Home Secretary visiting Rwanda to sign a new asylum treaty, Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, said:

“With this treaty, ministers are once again doubling down on a fundamentally reckless policy of not processing asylum claims made in the UK – even while expecting other countries to deal with the asylum claims they receive.

“The policy of not processing claims has already created a massive, costly and inhuman backlog, in which tens of thousands of people are now simply stuck in limbo.

“The gross political fantasy that Rwanda can simply receive these people from the UK is utterly immoral, wholly impractical and sets a terrible example on the world stage.

“Last month’s Supreme Court ruling should have acted as a reality-check on the Government’s hopeless Rwanda plan, but instead ministers are now putting at risk any notion that it respects the law, courts and the country’s international agreements.”