UK to set out immigration deal with Rwanda in Channel crossing crackdown
Boris Johnson will tomorrow announce a “migration and economic development partnership” with Rwanda, with speculation rife this will see the UK send migrants found trying to cross the English Channel to the African nation.
Johnson will make a speech in Kent tomorrow to announce a crackdown on illegal boat crossings, with the Prime Minister expected to say the”British people voted several times to control our borders,not to close them, but to control them”.
It was reported by The Times last week that the government had struck a deal with the Rwandan government to set up an offshore detention centre for asylum seekers who illegally come to the UK.
Refugees minister Lord Richard Harrington denied the reports and said “there’s no possibility of sending them to Rwanda.”
The amount of people crossing the Channel by boat from France tripled in 2021 compared to 2020, with figures compiled by the BBC putting the figure at around 28,500.
Twenty-seven people died trying to make the perilous journey in November.
Johnson is expected to say: “These vile people smugglers are abusing the vulnerable and turning the Channel into a watery graveyard, with men, women and children, drowning in unseaworthy boats and suffocating in refrigerated lorries.
“So just as Brexit allowed us to take back control of legal immigration by replacing free movement with our points-based system,we are also taking back control of illegal immigration, with a long-term plan for asylum in this country.
“It is a plan that will ensure the UK has a world-leading asylum offer, providing generous protection to those directly fleeing the worst of humanity,by settling thousands of people every year through safe and legal routes.”