Yeah lads, spending half a mill to deport eight people is really going to "disrupt" gangs who have already brought them here. Do you think the gangs give a damn? Particularly as by shipping people to Rwanda the government makes them even more vulnerable to traffickers #r4today
Anyone using the whole it's to "save lives" or it "breaks the business model of gangs" lines about the #RwandaMigrationPlan is either lying or doesn't know/understand it enough to comment on it. The outcome of this policy is that it will increase trafficking and loss of life.
Most people who cross the channel seek asylum, 98%, and more than 3/4s receive it. So we're talking about "genuine refugees" no matter what pundits like to claim. That means they are guaranteed the right to enter a country by any means without penalty under international law.
They're also not required to seek asylum in "First Safe Country". Not only does this not feature in international law, it doesn't feature in commonsense. 86% of world's refugees are in developed nations. If everyone said they should stay in different countries it would be 100%
Proportionally the UK takes a tiny number of refugees. Not only because of its location, but because it isn't actually a prime destination for majority. Those who come tend to do so because of language and family ties, two key things which feature on perceptions of safety.
Asylum seekers also don't tend to have an in-depth knowledge of immigration laws. Many who cross the channel don't use gangs, as they self-facilitate their own crossings, so deporting them doesn't break the model, and those who do use gangs get their information from the gangs.
Gangs lie to them. They don't care what happens to asylum seekers. They either get their money up front if they are smugglers and if they are traffickers' they will just find more people to exploit. Many trafficking victims don't even know which country they are heading to.
Sorry that should have been "86% in developing". Shouldn't type threads before coffee
So none of this "breaks the model" of gangs. What shipping vulnerable people 4,000 miles away to a country with known human rights abuses is to make them an easy target for traffickers to prey on and exploit, unsurprisingly.
So it doesn't act as a "deterrent" because people coming to the UK tend to do so for one of two reasons which don't change, family and language. It doesn't act as a "deterrent" because most people coming to the UK don't know about it.
It doesn't act as a "break the model of gangs" because the gangs do not care one way or the other. It doesn't "break the model of gangs" because it creates a never ending cycle of people seeking safety for them to exploit.
It doesn't "save lives" because those who are inevitably trafficked from Rwanda are at more risk. It doesn't "save lives" because it increases the chances of people killing themselves. It doesn't "save lives" because it puts people at risk of more abuse.
Alternative means of tackling gangs have been put forward for years. Not only are they more humane, but they are workable, and cheaper. Things like opening up more accessible routes to seek asylum in the UK. Ending carrier liability fines so people can fly or catch Eurostar.
Workable solutions are ignored by the politicians and pundits who say Rwanda "is the only option, to save lives" because they require providing people with asylum, and all they want is for UK to take no-one. It isn't about "saving lives". The Rwanda plan is about racism. #r4today
You see, the UK has pretty much closed down the "legal routes" the government claims people should be taking. Those routes were always highly limited anyway. We're an island. The only way many of those seeking safety here can get here is via irregular routes.
No-one wants to pay a smuggler. No-one wants to be exploited by a trafficker. No-one wants to risk their life crossing the channel. Without genuine alternatives though they have no choice. Most refugees can't wait for visas, even if they stood a chance of getting one.
Just look at the situation with Ukrainian citizens effectively still abandoned by this government, including families with children, while they wait for visas. They are people who can apply for a visas though. Most asylum seekers don't even have that chance.
So the only way, and it is the only way, you actually reduce channel crossings is by ensuring that people have safer, more accessible means, to seek asylum in the UK without using them. If you take away the need for people to use gangs, that's when you "break the model of gangs".

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More from @stand_for_all

Jun 13
Not shocked by the Rwanda appeal decision, but that doesn't mean it makes sense. That the policy is to be used on those who come to UK via irregular means seems in direct conflict with Article 31 of the refugee convention, prohibiting penalising asylum seekers for manner of entry
That UK already takes Rwanda refugees, let alone the war on its border with DRC, vast evidence of human rights abuses and track record of asylum seekers sent there ending up in third countries would appear to put the policy in direct conflict with principle of non-refoulement.
And that's just for starters. Friday's and today's rulings don't just put those facing deportation at risk, they appear to show a lack of consideration for two key pillars of international refugee law, a move which risks undermining the whole international refugee regime.
Read 7 tweets
Jun 13
Everyone waiting for the Judge to get to the point and announce the decision on the Rwanda appeal
Legal question, can the flight leave if the judge is still running through their explanation and hasn't reached a verdict? If not, at this rate we may have seen the Rwanda plan put on hold for the foreseeable.
Bugger!! This is not good.
Read 5 tweets
Jun 12
Okay, let's break this down shall we. Simply put it is nonsense. The first flight includes Afghans, there are also Albanians, Syrians etc slated for removal. So in no way is the #RwandaMigrationPlan about just "Africans" as suggested here. 1/ ImageImage
Rwanda is also not a safe country where people are protected and welcomed. It has a litany of human rights abuses, ongoing at the moment rather than historic. 2/
amnesty.org/en/location/af…. ImageImageImage
Nor, by any stretch of the imagination, could it be classed as a place where refugees live "dignified" lives and "develop" themselves when they are forced into poverty and suffer abuses and attacks. 3/

telegraph.co.uk/global-health/… ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Jun 9
Two BIG issues facing those who believe in migrants' rights right now.
1) The Home Office has something of a record of claiming that they until an appeal has gone through they can continue with a policy, even if deemed unlawful, and the Supreme Court has a record of.... 1/5
saying it isn't the role of the courts to interfere in political policy. So even if legal cases against the Rwanda plan are successful it still isn't over. 2/5
2) The Rwanda plan is only one of a huge number of things which the government is doing which undermine the rights of asylum seekers and other migrants. If/when it fails they'll just announce something else. They are very good at keeping everyone in "reactive mode". 3/5
Read 5 tweets
Jun 9
Long thread: On the 14th June the government claims that it will start forcibly deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda. Let's be brutally honest here, the plan only appeals to imbeciles and racists. Apply any humanity or sense to it and you see how terrible it is. 1/ #r4today
It's facing multiple legal challenges. Those challenges are likely to succeed. Not because of "lefty lawyers", but because it violates multiple laws. If courts find it illegal it won't be because of "do-gooders" it'll be because the Home Office is, yet again, breaking the law. 3/
The Home Office's own statistics show that 98% of those crossing the channel seek asylum and more than three quarters receive it. So they know they are talking about asylum seekers whose rights, including to use irregular means of entry, are legally protected. 4/
Read 21 tweets
Jun 8
Of the many deeply disgusting and inhumane anti-immigration policies this government has pushed, the Rwanda plan is potentially the worst. It's a policy designed to be cruel, designed to hurt people. It needs to be stopped. #RwandaMigrationPlan
#r4today

bigissue.com/news/activism/…
No-one should be forcibly transported to Rwanda, a country with a track record of human rights abuses, but particularly children. No matter what claims the @ukhomeoffice may make, incorrect age assessments will inevitably see under 18's shipped off.

Number of age disputes rose from an average of 840 per year to more than 2500 in 2021. During a similar period outcomes shifted a higher proportion being assessed as children, to the majority being treated as adults. It's not statistically likely such a swing happens by chance.
Read 5 tweets

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