Botswana Rejects Controversial UK Proposal On Asylum-Seekers

Just hours after Rwanda accepted the proposal, Botswana rejects UK proposal on asylum-seekers.

Botswana says it has rejected a proposal to accept asylum seekers from the United Kingdom, which is similar to the arrangement Rwanda has agreed to.

The UK House of Lords passed a bill on Monday that would deport migrants to Rwanda, a move condemned by human rights activists and the UN.

This week, a coalition of civil society organizations urged Botswana’s government to reject UK proposals to send thousands of migrants to the African country.

Botswana’s foreign affairs minister, Lemogang Kwape, told VOA that U.K. officials had reached out, but Gaborone authorities would not commit to “hosting people without knowing what the end game would be.”

Kutlwano Relontle is the program manager for the Botswana coalition, the Universal Periodic Review NGO Working Group.

According to Relontle, the groups have called on Botswana’s government and other countries to distance themselves from the controversial U.K. program, which appears to be aimed at protecting only some of those fleeing their countries due to fear of persecution and not others.

“We noted that in the case of the conflict in Ukraine, those seeking asylum were fast-tracked into the system, and citizens even encouraged to host them in their homes,” Relontle said in a statement.

Relontle stated that the group also wants the UK government to follow international conventions on the treatment of asylum seekers.

Officials in the United Kingdom say they want to put an end to asylum seekers arriving in small boats, primarily from Asia and Africa.

According to Jonathan Portes, a professor of economics and public policy in the United Kingdom, the Rwanda arrangement will turn away some deserving asylum seekers.

“There is a general view that the small boats crisis needs to be resolved, [as] that it is very dangerous and unacceptable for people to be arriving in such numbers across the channel, but that does not mean that the majority of the population want to send people, particularly people who would have a claim to refugee status, to Rwanda.”

According to Portes, it is not surprising that countries like Botswana are rejecting the controversial policy after it received widespread criticism from the United Nations and activists.

“Frankly it will be highly unlikely for any other country to participate in this, both from a reputational and practical point of view,” Portes said in a statement. “I think frankly even the Rwandans, despite being offered really quite remarkably large sums of money by the U.K. government, are regretting or at the very least, having second thoughts about whether this policy is sensible.”

The policy was first implemented two years ago, but the United Kingdom Supreme Court declared it illegal, halting deportation.

Following the bill’s passage on Monday, the United Kingdom is expected to begin deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda in mid-July.

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