Home Office asking civil servants to move to Rwanda to oversee asylum scheme

The Home Office will send a group of civil servants to Kigali to oversee the Rwandan asylum system. (Photo: i)

Home Office staff have been asked to apply for jobs in Rwanda to help process the asylum claims of migrants sent there from the UK, i can reveal.

The Rwanda deportation scheme finally passed into law this week and the Home Office has advertised for people in the asylum decision making team in the UK to move to Kigali as early as next month to offer advice and mentoring to Rwandan officials dealing with asylum claims.

Decision makers, technical support officers, policy workers and up to four team leaders will be sent to the African country, i understands, with staff posted for just weeks at a time on a rota basis. A round trip on direct flights takes more than 17 hours.

The Home Office told its asylum decision making team that it had been asked to provide “operational support and expertise” to the Rwandan Government to process the asylum claims of those sent there by the UK.

Officials told their staff that anyone deployed to Rwanda would have to follow “exceptionally high standards of behaviour” due to the “political interest” in the scheme. The total number of civil servants to be deployed is unclear.

The Home Office began hiring for staff to travel to Kigali before Parliament passed the Rwanda bill on Monday night, sources said. One Home Office source described the process as “rushed”, with the application window just a week long.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has pledged to get the first flights off the ground in 10 to 12 weeks time.

The flights will take asylum seekers who have arrived in the UK illegally – such as by small boat – to Rwanda to have their claims processed there. They would not have their claims processed in the UK first and would not be allowed to return to the UK, even if their claim is approved.

The UK Government has been working with Rwanda to bolster its asylum system with Home Office staff helping train officials on refugee law and asylum decision making but had not revealed it planned to deploy civil servants on the ground.

When approached by i, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which took legal action against the Government over the Rwanda scheme, revealed it had not been consulted on its members being expected to go to Rwanda to work.

Concerns have repeatedly been raised about the capacity of Rwanda’s asylum system to take on migrants from the UK, including from the UN.

The Supreme Court ruled in November that the scheme was unlawful because of deficiencies in the Rwandan asylum system which meant people could be wrongly sent back to their home countries and face persecution.

Under international human rights law, the principle of “non-refoulement” guarantees that no one should be removed to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.

The Supreme Court pointed out that Rwanda has rejected 100 per cent of asylum claims from countries in known conflict zones including Syria and Afghanistan, while evidence from the United Nations’ refugee agency, showed more than 100 cases of refoulement took place after the UK agreed its deal with Rwanda.

The Government this week passed the Safety Of Rwanda bill and has updated its treaty with the Rwandan Government to address the Supreme Court’s concerns.

This includes moving to a caseworker model for asylum processing, and Rwanda getting advice from an independent expert on its asylum decision making for at least the first six months.

The PCS union said it would be raising issues with the Home Office about their members’ welfare if they travel to Rwanda, including where they would be living, how they would be managed and which jurisdiction they came under.

General secretary Fran Heathcote said: “This chaotic implementation of a chaotic policy is symptomatic of a chaotic government.

“We were not consulted about our members being expected to go to Rwanda to work. We’ll be raising issues with the Home Office about our members’ welfare if they travel to Rwanda, where they’ll be living, how they’re managed, who’s managing them, which jurisdiction do they come under – the UK or Rwanda?”

“It’s our members who have to implement the government’s unethical, inhumane and impractical Rwanda plan, yet they’ve been treated as an afterthought in the scramble to appease right wing voters,” she added.

Some Home Office staff have previously hinted that they would go on strike if forced to implement the Rwanda deal. The Rwanda plan is designed to deter dangerous Channel crossings, which have surged this year.

So far, 6,667 people have made the journey compared to 5,546 during the same timescale in 2023.

This year’s figures so far are down by 0.4 per cent compared to 2022, which was a record year for small boat crossings since the crisis began in 2018.

Three men, a woman and a seven-year-old girl died while attempting to reach the UK in a small boat, close to the French shore on Tuesday morning.

The Home Office did not respond to a request for comment.