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Apr 14 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Why would refugees who are sent to be detained in Rwanda just shrug and stay put?

By the time you reach the Channel you have gone through Hell to reach safety in the UK. This plan is just about funnelling money back into a new smuggling route out of Rwanda. It’s sick. #r4today
In case anyone doubts it, it’s EXACTLY what’s happened since Israel signed a similar agreement w Rwanda in 2013.

Once sent to Rwanda, refugees were arbitrarily detained & beaten. They escaped with smugglers, faced trafficking & slavery on journeys to find safety at last #r4today
Read all about the outcome of Israeli offshoring efforts to Rwanda here.
This is just more desperate cruelty from Patel that will only be celebrated by international gangs of smugglers & traffickers.

It will not make refugees disappear. #r4today law.ox.ac.uk/research-subje…
The only way to stop the boats is by offering people safe alternative ways to travel.

If you want to save lives & take the money out of the smuggling trade that’s what you do. You speed up asylum decisions & help refugees get on with new, safe lives in our communities. #r4today
Is it really worth the billions this scheme will cost? The suffering it will cause? The boost to smuggling trade it will produce? Just to save Johnson’s skin from another day of questions about whether he should resign for breaking his lockdown laws?

Join us today 6pm

#r4today

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More from @ZoeJardiniere

Zoe Gardner Profile picture
Mar 21
Tomorrow MPs will vote, one by one, to take changes made in House of Lords back out of the #NationalityAndBordersBill which has rightly been called the #AntiRefugeeBill.
Here, in plain English, are some of the key changes that MPs will consider 🧵 #r4today
Lords voted to remove power for the Home Secretary to strip British nationals of citizenship without informing them of the fact.

Latest in a line of govts widening citizenship stripping powers.

Tomorrow, MPs are likely to vote this power back in. #citizenshipisaright #r4today
Lords voted to remove the power for refugees to be sent “offshore” before we have examined their claim for protection.

This is immediate deportation for almost all refugees, to camps where we’d pay to keep them indefinitely.

Tomorrow MPs are likely to vote it back in. #r4today
Read 15 tweets
Zoe Gardner Profile picture
Mar 8
Mishal Hussein rightly sceptical: it took the govt more than 6 months to establish its resettlement scheme for Afghan refugees & still hasn’t brought anyone new to safety under it since, so how can we have faith when we see similar news of chaos & delays for Ukrainians? #r4today
Ben Wallace full of misleading bluster about the 600 or so Ukrainians currently stuck in Calais he says will have their visas processed soon…

This chaos is a direct result of the govt’s brutal approach to refugees: they should be able to travel without needing a visa. #r4today
What if a Ukrainian family gives up on this farce and gets onto a small boat alongside refugees from Sudan and Iraq and Afghanistan? Will the government finally listen and provide safe, regulated travel from Calais to the UK for people who wish to seek asylum then? #r4today
Read 7 tweets
Zoe Gardner Profile picture
Mar 7
Apologies for linking to the S*n, but this would be an absolutely enormous win. Patel seems to concede we need humanitarian safe routes for Ukraine.

We must continue to push for this level of response. 50 Ukrainians jumping through our visa hoops is not good enough. #r4today
This must force her to change track on her #NationalityAndBordersBill which is coming back to the Lords again this week.
That Bill criminalises refugees reaching the UK. If she recognises the need for humanitarian visas, she is conceding that cannot be right & must throw it out.
If Patel concedes that Ukrainian refugees must not be expected to all stay in Poland - their “first safe country” and that the UK must play our part, then the argument is won. The Bill must go. Throw out the #AntiRefugeeBill #r4today
Read 7 tweets
Zoe Gardner Profile picture
Mar 2
An interesting thread.
Ukrainians are “Europeans like us” now, but when just a few months ago they were seasonal agricultural workers, they were “replacements” for EU free movement labour, they were expendable after 6 months, campaigns for their workers’ rights ignored entirely.
We saw the racialisation of Eastern Europeans during the Brexit campaign and the years before, and we could see it again. If numbers of Ukrainian refugees grow and the conflict continues, leaving them displaced for long periods, how will they be seen across Europe longer term?
How much of Western Europe’s generosity is based on the tacit understanding that the vast majority of displaced Ukrainians will in fact remain among their “brothers” in Poland? How long will the suspension of usual arguments about “illegitimate secondary movement” apply?
Read 5 tweets
Zoe Gardner Profile picture
Mar 1
While we hear of a huge Russian advance on Kyiv, here’s Lord Kerr explaining clearly how the government’s #NationalityAndBordersBill will mean no Ukrainian could receive full refugee protection in the UK.

The Lords did the right thing last night, will MPs change course? #r4today
And while we are all eyes on Ukraine, we cannot forget the other refugees that this #AntiRefugeeBill is going to harm.
#r4today report of Afghan fathers selling their organs in order to feed their families has knocked the wind out of me. The least we can do is THROW OUT THIS BILL
Yvette Cooper rightly says it’s so wrong Ukrainians living in the UK cannot bring elderly parents to join them here.
The rules on family reunion, for refugees and all migrants, are unnecessarily limited & cruel - and the #NationalityAndBordersBill will make it much worse #r4today
Read 4 tweets
Zoe Gardner Profile picture
Feb 28
🔔🔔 LORDS VOTE TO REMOVE CLAUSE 11 FROM THE #NationalityAndBordersBill

And after this knock-out blow dealt by the cross bench Peer Lord Kerr, how could they do anything else?

A blow to the government's #AntiRefugeeBill and a stand taken in solidarity with Ukraine & refugees
They also voted to remove Clause 9, which allows people to br stripped of British citizenship without notice.

It's a sorry state of affairs when our elected representatives are so venal & corrupt that we must rely on the Lords to protect what's right
For the blow-by-blow of today's Lords' debates and votes on the Bill tonight, Jon's excellent thread is where you need to be. I'm tapping out after that high on Clause 11. Knackered. Take her away, Jon.
Read 4 tweets

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