CIVICUS speaks with Aria Danaparamita, Advocacy Director of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), about the UK’s new migration treaty with Rwanda, aimed at sending asylum seekers arriving unlawfully in the UK to Rwanda for processing.
The JCWI has been challenging policies that lead to discrimination, destitution and the denial of rights in the UK for more than 50 years. It provides legal and advice services to immigrants and asylum-seekers.
How different is the new treaty that the UK signed with Rwanda from its predecessor?
The new agreement is different from the previous one because it’s a treaty between the governments of the UK and Rwanda, while the previous one was only a memorandum of understanding. A treaty is legally binding under international law and requires scrutiny by the UK parliament, while the previous agreement was simply signed by the UK Home Secretary.
The new treaty is accompanied by draft ‘emergency legislation’ seeking to provide the legal basis for maintaining that Rwanda is a safe country, which is a prerequisite for the treaty to be implemented without the UK breaching its international obligations towards asylum seekers.
The treaty includes provisions aimed at addressing the concerns raised by the UK Supreme Court about the systemic risks of human rights violations if people were to be sent to Rwanda. However, these provisions – which are at this point just words on paper – will be wholly inadequate. The Supreme Court was unanimous and unequivocal in its evidence-based finding that Rwanda is not a safe country, and the risks are systemic and cannot be improved in a matter of months, despite the government’s wishes. Because of this, the treaty and the provisions in the Rwanda Bill are nothing more than an attempt to legislate the fiction that Rwanda is safe, despite overwhelming evidence on the contrary.
Many people across the UK and across civil society are united in their strong rejection of the Rwanda plan. We have told the government ever since the first Rwanda flight was planned that this is a cruel and inhumane plan, and that it risks breaching the UK’s obligations under international law as well as our moral duty to protect people in search of safety. We continue to resist the government’s failed and inhumane Rwanda plan because we should not be sending people to places where their lives are at risk – whether Rwanda or anywhere else.
Do you view this as part of a wider trend?
We are seeing more and more policies that are hostile towards people on the move, particularly in western, former colonial countries. It is both ironic and unjust that the countries that have historically benefited, and continue to benefit, most from migration are now turning people away at their borders, often with high levels of violence. Across European lands and seas, we have seen lives taken away by cruel border regimes that do not value migrants as people. We urge the UK government to stop making policies driven by hate and hostility, and instead protect the rights of everyone to move, work and live freely.
Migration is a fact of life. We as humans have always moved, whether to the next town or to another country across the world. In fact, the most recent immigration statistics show that the UK urgently needs migrant workers to increase its labour force.
But instead of recognising the genuine need to welcome migrants in this country, or acknowledging the ways people contribute to our communities, the government continues to scapegoat migrants and fuel racist rhetoric to cover its policy failures – to address the deepening cost-of-living crisis, to reform our crippled healthcare sector, or to provide adequate public services after years of austerity.
What would the impact if the Rwanda plan were to be implemented?
The Rwanda plan has always been cruel, inhumane and, as the Supreme Court’s judgement unequivocally shows, unlawful. We cannot send people away to places where their lives might be at risk. It is against international law, our domestic law and our moral compass as a society.
If the Rwanda Bill is passed, it will almost certainly breach international law. The Home Secretary himself has acknowledged that he cannot guarantee it will comply with the European Convention on Human Rights. It will also stand to breach numerous conventions, from the Refugee Convention to the Convention against Torture.
The human cost of this bill will be catastrophic. Even before it has passed, we have seen the prospect of being sent to Rwanda drive the people we support into extreme anxiety and mental distress, and we continue to see alarming rates of self-harm and suicides. We cannot let this bill pass or be implemented. By implementing it, the government will be forcing people to face certain and irreversible harm.
How is UK civil society, and your organisation in particular, working to help migrants?
JCWI support migrants in various ways, including by providing legal representation and high-quality legal advice. We also campaign alongside migrants and grassroots communities for migrant justice.
For doing this work, in recent years we have faced increasingly hostile and racist rhetoric led by those in power and enabled by the media. However, we will not let this stop us. We know that most people are kind and compassionate and believe that we all have the right to live safe, thriving lives regardless of where we are from. Together we can build the world we want to live in, free from harm and border violence.
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Get in touch with the JCWI through its webpage or Facebook page, and follow @JCWI_UK on Twitter and Instagram.
