Treat refugees like prisoners

What happened this Tuesday in Wiltshire seemed like a scene from a movie.

The crude thing is that it was real: a few minutes after takeoff, the first plane that was going to deport immigrants from the United Kingdom to Rwanda had to stay on the ground because European justice blocked it.

Boris Johnson saw his plan to outsource the management of asylum seekers to a third country frustrated, and is now insinuating that the UK could withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.

Six years ago, faced with the flood of refugees from the war in Syria, the EU signed a pact with Turkey to manage the situation in exchange for 6,000 million euros.

Today 4 million refugees live there, most of them Syrians.

Tens of thousands remain stranded in unsanitary camps on the Greek islands.

For NGOs this is the image of failure.

However, Brussels maintains it.

This month the European Parliament praised Ankara's efforts to continue hosting the world's largest refugee population, while noting that it was drifting further and further away from EU values.

More information

European justice blocks the first deportation of migrants to Rwanda by the Johnson Government

Johnson promised eurosceptics in 2016 that with Brexit they would regain control of the borders.

He has not succeeded, and in recent months he has reopened the immigration debate to avoid delving into his mismanagement.

The call via Rwanda consists of paying the African country more than 140 million euros to take care of whoever crosses the English Channel.

It does not matter if they are fleeing torture or if they have no relationship with Rwanda, 6,000 kilometers from the United Kingdom.

Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, says that the Rwanda road sets a catastrophic precedent.

In reality, London wants to turn the screw on a failed model: asylum policies do not work, they are full of loopholes and the people who should be protected end up abandoned.

The Johnson thing is scandalous, but Denmark is going to do something similar: send asylum seekers to centers outside the European Union.

There is talk of paying Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia or Rwanda, which are not among the most guaranteeing human rights.

This is an example of how the extreme right has managed to impose its agenda: today Copenhagen wants to reach “zero refugees”.

It copies the model of Australia, which has been sending immigrants to Pacific islands for years.

What he historically did with prisoners,

There are 100 million refugees and forcibly displaced persons in the world, according to UNHCR.

The war in Ukraine alone has increased the figure by 5 million.

And international agreements on them are based on political expediency.

50% off

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber