The UK’s new Home Secretary denounced a failed proposal by former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to relocate migrants to Rwanda, labeling it a “shocking waste of taxpayer money” amounting to £700 million ($904 million).
Keir Starmer, who took office this month following Sunak, promptly terminated the controversial plan.
Sunak’s effort, dubbed “stopping the boats,” aimed to curb asylum-seekers crossing the English Channel from France but faced legal challenges and criticism from human rights groups.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper highlighted costs including £290 million paid to Rwanda, expenses for unused charter flights, the detention and subsequent release of hundreds of individuals, and funding for more than a thousand civil servants involved in the initiative.
She informed lawmakers that the previous administration had allocated over £10 billion of taxpayers’ money to the project without parliamentary approval.
The Rwandan government stated it bore no responsibility to reimburse the disputed funds.
The Home Secretary underscored ongoing concerns about dangerous small boat crossings, expected to persist through the summer.
She stressed the necessity for enhanced measures against human trafficking but did not provide specifics.
Official figures disclosed that nearly 1,500 migrants arrived in the UK via small boats across the English Channel in a single week.
Tragically, two individuals lost their lives during rescue operations off the northern French coast.
Sunak’s strategy aimed to address the rising global trend of migrants, peaking at 46,000 in 2022, undertaking perilous journeys across the English Channel.
The government argued these migrants should not be classified as genuine refugees since they did not seek asylum in the first safe country they reached.
In 2022, the UK reached an agreement with Rwanda to transfer migrants who arrived as stowaways or by boat to the East African nation for asylum processing.
Critics, including human rights groups, criticized the plan as impractical and unethical, particularly due to the geographical distance involved.
Despite legal challenges in UK courts, no deportation flights to Rwanda were conducted.
Only four individuals voluntarily relocated to Rwanda, as confirmed by Cooper.
In November, the UK Supreme Court ruled the policy illegal, stating Rwanda was not a safe third country for migrant transfers.
The justices unanimously agreed that sending claimants to Rwanda could expose them to the risk of mistreatment and potential deportation to their countries of origin.