The British government is planning to pay asylum seekers up to 3,000 pounds ($3,836) each to move to Rwanda under a voluntary plan to help clear the backlog of refugees who have had their applications to remain in the country rejected.
The new agreement with Rwanda is separate from the government’s stalled plan to forcibly deport most asylum seekers to the East African country, which was last year ruled unlawful by the UK’s Supreme Court.
Instead, it mirrors an existing government policy, where asylum seekers are offered financial assistance to leave Britain for their home country, but under the new plan, people will get the money if they agree to live in Rwanda.
Kevin Hollinrake, a junior business minister, said on Wednesday the new policy was a good use of public money because it was cheaper than the cost of looking after people in Britain who had been denied asylum but not yet removed.
There are tens of thousands of asylum seekers in Britain who have been refused asylum, but they cannot be removed because the government is not allowed to return people to a war-torn country or one with a poor human rights record.
“So, 3,000 pounds, of course, that’s a lot of money, but it costs a lot of money to keep people in the UK who are failed asylum seekers,” Hollinrake said.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has invested huge amounts of political capital in a promise to stop the arrival of asylum seekers who arrive without permission on England’s southern coast in small, inflatable boats.
