London, April 18 (BNA): The leader of the Anglican Church has strongly criticized the British government’s plan to put some asylum seekers on one-way trips to Rwanda, saying that “subcontracting our responsibilities” to refugees could not stand. So scrutinize God.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby delivered an unusually direct political intervention in his Easter sermon on Sunday, saying there were “serious ethical questions about sending asylum seekers abroad,” the Associated Press reports.
“Subcontracting our responsibilities, even to a country that seeks to do well, like Rwanda, is the opposite of God’s nature who himself takes responsibility for our failures,” he said.
Speaking at Canterbury Cathedral in southeast England, Welby said that while “the details are for politics and politicians, the principle must stand up to God’s judgment – and it can’t”.
Britain and Rwanda announced on Thursday that they had reached an agreement for some people to arrive in the UK as stowaways on trucks or in small boats sending 4,000 miles (6,400 km) to the East African country, where their asylum applications will be processed and, if successful, they will remain in Rwanda.
Boris Johnson’s Conservative government says the plan will discourage people from making dangerous attempts to cross the English Channel, and the people-smuggling gangs who run the treacherous route will be out of business. More than 28,000 migrants entered the UK via the Channel last year, up from 8,500 in 2020. Dozens died, including 27 in November when one boat capsized.
Rights groups and refugees have called the plan inhumane, unworkable and a waste of taxpayers’ money. The UN refugee agency said this was “contrary to the letter and spirit of the Refugee Convention”.
Another senior Anglican clergyman, Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell, described Rwanda’s plan as “frustrating and sad”.
“After all, there is no such thing in law as an undocumented asylum seeker,” he said in an Eastern sermon at York Minster in northern England. “It is the people who take advantage of them that we need to suppress, not our sisters and brothers who need them.”
The deal – in which the UK paid Rwanda 120 million pounds ($158 million) in advance – leaves many questions unanswered, including the final cost and how the participants will be selected. The UK says children and families with children will not be sent to Rwanda.
Senior civil servants at the Home Office, the government department responsible for immigration policy, raised concerns about the plan but Home Secretary Priti Patel dismissed those concerns.
The Home Office said in a statement that Britain may resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees from all over the world.
“However, the world is facing a global migration crisis on an unprecedented scale, and change is needed to prevent vile human smugglers from endangering people’s lives and to reform the crippled global asylum system,” she added.
Alf Dobbs, a Labor member of the House of Lords who came to Britain as a refugee from the Nazis in 1939, said the plan was likely “a violation of the 1951 Geneva Conventions on refugees”. He said the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, would appeal the move.
Johnson acknowledged Thursday that the plan was likely to be challenged in court by what he called “politically motivated lawyers” in order to “thwart the government”.
Political opponents accuse Johnson of using a headline-grabbing policy to divert attention from his political problems. Johnson is resisting calls to resign after he was fined by police for attending a party in his office in 2020 that violated coronavirus lockdown rules.