Exclusive: Rwanda Says UK 'Hysterical' Over Migrant Plan

Criticism of Rwanda's involvement in an asylum-seeker relocation deal with the United Kingdom is "unfair" and "hysterical," Kigali's government spokesperson has said after the Supreme Court in London ruled the plan to be unlawful on Wednesday.

Yolande Makolo told Newsweek in an exclusive interview that there is still hope for the plan, which has been the flagship of the ruling Conservative Party's efforts to crack down on irregular immigration into the U.K. ahead of the next parliamentary election to be held by January 2025. The party—in power since 2010—is projected to suffer a historic defeat.

"It's very clear that the debate is hysterical, and we're getting drawn into it," Makolo said of this week's developments. "We know much of it is really not about us because some of these people don't even know where Rwanda is on the map. It's really a domestic issue in the U.K., understandably so because it's a big challenge for them."

"For Rwandans, there really is no controversy," Makolo said. "It's bold, maybe controversial on the U.K. side with the domestic audience. We're used to welcoming people here. But we also want to show that Africa is also a place of solutions, not of problems."

A host of human rights organizations and pro-immigrant charities have mobilized against the Rwanda plan, with a recent joint statement signed by 140 organizations decrying the proposal as "cruel and immoral."

The five-year deal, worth some $170 million for Rwanda, was initially announced in April 2022. It would allow the U.K. to send asylum-seekers to the East African nation where their claims would be processed. Asylum-seekers could then be granted refugee status to stay in Rwanda, could apply to settle there on other grounds, or seek asylum in another "safe third country."

The Conservative government has gradually shifted to the right on the immigration issue since the Brexit vote to leave the European Union in 2016. It has said that "anyone entering the U.K. illegally" after January 1, 2022, could be sent to Rwanda, with no limit on numbers.

So far, no asylum-seekers have been sent, with the first planned flight in June 2022 blocked by legal challenges.

The Supreme Court said on Wednesday there are "substantial grounds for believing that asylum-seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment by reason of refoulement to their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda," referring to the potential return of refugees to countries where they might be in danger.

The verdict did note that Rwanda entered the U.K. agreement in good faith and provided assurances as to the safety of asylum-seekers transferred there. Court President Robert Reed said that the judgment was not a political one and reflected British law and European Convention on Human Rights principles.

Makolo, though, said Kigali considers the judgement political and "unjustified." She added: "It relied very heavily on the [U.N. refugee agency] so-called concerns, which they had never discussed with us before, but they were happy to work with us on so many programs and call our open-door policy 'exemplary.'"

"I think we get drawn into this rather unfairly," Makolo added. "It's not Rwanda in the dock. We are not on trial here. We are offering a home to people; we're doing it for the right reasons...Some Rwandans are a little bit surprised that we've been attacked in the way that we've been attacked in the media."

Makalo confirmed that new treaty talks are now underway with the British government, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak plans emergency legislation to designate the African nation as a "safe country."

Reports this summer alleged that the Rwandan facilities intended to receive the asylum-seekers were inadequate. Makolo said Kigali does not intend to run the project "on the cheap," citing Rwanda's role in receiving African refugees transferred from Libya under a European Union-supported agreement signed with the UNHCR in 2019.

"We want to do it right," she said. "People have to have decent accommodation. People have to have a fair chance at building a decent life here...We are prepared to keep explaining what we're doing, and to keep advocating for how we want this country to grow.

"The U.K. will be investing resources into the programs that we have, into the services that we have here, so that we're able to receive the migrants and process their asylum claims. We have an asylum system of our own, which we have been scaling up since we signed this partnership. We will be able to process those claims.

"The ones who get refugee status will then be able to live, work, go to school here, and live among Rwandans. There will be no detention centers, immigrant prisons, migrant holding pens; nothing like that. The way we see this is that the migrants will come here, and after the initial welcoming accommodation, they will be integrated into Rwandan society."

This week's delay raises the prospect that no flight will depart to Rwanda before the next British parliamentary election, which has to be held by January 28, 2025. Sunak—serving as the fifth Conservative leader since 2016—is far behind Labour challenger Keir Starmer in the polls.

Burning through leaders, struggling to address Britain's myriad economic challenges, and mired in infighting, the party is facing its first general election defeat since 2005. Thus far, the Conservative "Stop the Boats" immigration campaign has done little to move the needle.

Sunak this week said his government's Rwanda proposal will not be derailed.

"We will clear the remaining barriers and flights will be heading off in the spring as planned," the prime minister said on Wednesday.

Labour has been avowedly opposed to the Rwanda plan since its inception. "Rishi Sunak wasted £140 million of taxpayers' money on his unlawful Rwanda scheme," Starmer wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday. In October, the former human rights lawyer said he would reverse the Rwanda policy if he won office in the next election, even if flights were already transferring asylum-seekers.

Makolo said Kigali is focused on the task at hand. "We'll see as we go," she said when asked if the Rwandan government had any hope that a future Labour administration would continue with the project.

"We have no control over what's happening domestically in the U.K.," the spokesperson added. "We'll keep our side of this partnership."