UK's controversial Rwanda policy close to being passed

The United Kingdom government's highly controversial law about deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda could finally be passed by Parliament this week, but there is no guarantee about when it might produce any results.

When the nation left the European Union, it lost the ability to return some asylum seekers to the bloc without considering their claims, leading to a huge rise in the number of attempted small-boat crossings of the English Channel because people knew they could not be sent elsewhere.

By the end of March, more than 5,000 people had crossed the busy and dangerous waterway so far this year.

In April 2022, a plan was announced by then-prime minister Boris Johnson that would see what he called "economic migrants taking advantage of the asylum system" being sent to the landlocked African country in an "uncapped" deal, with Rwanda having "the capacity to resettle tens of thousands of people in the years ahead".

So far, despite the UK government having paid the Rwandan authorities more than 200 million pounds ($250 million), with estimates that the cost to resettle just 300 people could end up being more than three times that amount, there have been no deportations.

Last week, The Times newspaper reported that at a property development supposedly earmarked for deportees in the Rwandan capital Kigali, 70 percent of the units had been sold to local people.

Current UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made controlling immigration one of the policies he wants the Conservative Party to be judged on ahead of upcoming local and, soon, national elections.

Although the government would hail the passing of the legislation as a victory, whether it will lead to any concrete action is another matter, with campaign groups already planning legal challenges, similar to those that have prevented any deportation flights taking off so far.

Paul O'Connell is a representative of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents workers working on government contracts, including border force staff who could be involved in deportations.

He called the legislation "utterly performative", saying "we think the government knows it hasn't got a cat in hell's chance of surviving a legal challenge, but they just want to keep it alive as an issue to fight in the general election".

In March 2023, after then-home secretary Suella Braverman visited Kigali, a government source was quoted as saying "we are certainly working towards getting the flights off by the summer", and in June The Sun newspaper said Sunak was "increasingly hopeful" flights could begin in September, but neither happened.

Previously, when asked about finding a carrier company, Sunak said "we've got all the plans in place. I am highly confident ... I can operationalize the policy".

In November, he insisted "flights will be heading off in the spring as planned", but last week he declined to give Sky News a date, saying "we need to get the bill through Parliament first... but I am confident that once the bill is passed, we will be able to get this scheme up and running".

It was also reported recently that national carrier RwandAir had rejected the chance to get involved in the program because of fears about reputational damage.