Offshoring the asylum process: a dangerous move for health (Lancet, 30 April 2022)

Summary

Despite widespread condemnation of the UK's asylum partnership arrangement with Rwanda, the Home Office appears to be going ahead with its plans to relocate to east Africa people who it deems to have arrived illegally and who are therefore not eligible for asylum in the UK. The policy, formed in response to increasing arrivals of migrants in small boats (28 500 arrived to the UK in 2021), has been hailed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson as the “morally right thing to do”, and is designed to deter refugees from entering the country through “illegal, dangerous or unnecessary methods”. Faith leaders, charities, civil servants, and members of parliament in the UK have denounced the plan as unethical, wrong, racist, and callous—sentiments echoed by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. The agreement is unfair and shameful. It might be illegal and is certainly immoral. It is also undoubtedly bad for health.