In The Washington Post, Rachel Beatty Riedl, professor of government and director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, comments on a new agreement between the British government and Rwanda which further closes already restricted U.K. borders by allowing officials to send away people arriving via the English Channel. Similar plans in other countries suggest the U.K. program will endanger migrants, not protect them, Riedl and co-authors write.
“The agreement’s official end goal is that U.K.-bound asylum seekers would voluntarily resettle in Rwanda or a third country or return to their home countries,” Riedl writes in the piece with co-authors Eleanor Paynter, Christa Kuntzelman. “Rwanda has a relatively integrative policy toward social inclusion, public services and economic opportunities. However, Rwanda’s domestic record of stifling human rights means that asylum seekers will struggle to access rights and freedoms.”
