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In a bold move reminiscent of the former British government's controversial strategy, Germany is contemplating the deportation of illegal migrants to Rwanda. This proposal, articulated by Joachim Stamp, the German federal migration commissioner, aims to address the surge of migrants entering Europe through the Baltic route, which he attributes to orchestrated efforts by the Kremlin. The initiative seeks to utilize existing frameworks laid out in the now-defunct UK-Rwanda agreement, reflecting a growing urgency among European nations to manage immigration amid geopolitical tensions. As discussions unfold, the prospect of this strategy raises legal and ethical questions reminiscent of the challenges faced by the UK.
RMX: Germany is considering the deportation of illegal migrants to Rwanda — a plan adopted by the former British government before the left-wing Labour Party scrapped it.
Joachim Stamp, the German federal migration commissioner, warned migrants traveling to Europe from Belarus and Russia via the Baltic route could soon be deported to the East African country.
He said the move would help to combat the “hybrid warfare” deployed by the Kremlin and its allies to flood Europe with illegal immigration and sow discontent.
“They are deliberately sending migrants across the eastern border of the European Union,” Stamp told the Table.Briefings podcast.
The migration tsar, a member of the minor FDP coalition party, suggested that Berlin “could utilize the existing structures that were originally prepared for the British,” referencing the agreement between Kigali and London under the former U.K. Conservative government.
The U.K. paid Rwanda up-front fixed costs of around £370 million (€439 million) to get the scheme off the ground, funding the construction of accommodations, as well as paying for the costs associated with asylum processing, integration, and healthcare.
However, legal objections filed in the U.K. thwarted the scheme, which never came to fruition. When the Labour Party came to power in July, Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the scheme in his first week in office.
The Rwanda scheme proposed by the former Conservative administration in Britain was reserved for the offshore processing of illegal migrants arriving in small boats from the European mainland. However, Stamp suggests that Germany could employ the scheme for deportations of migrants when their country of origin refuses to accept their repatriation.
Should the German government pursue such a policy, it could find itself in a similar position to the former U.K. government that attempted to qualify the scheme with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Commenting on German interest in the policy, Robert Jenrick, a frontrunner in the U.K. Conservative Party’s internal leadership contest said: “The British government created a scheme in Rwanda which is admired by other countries around the world. Many of our partners, potentially Germany, have looked at that and thought they might create a version of it in the years ahead.
“Now the very facilities we invested in may be taken up by countries like Germany who clearly are more determined to tackle this issue than this Labour government, who seem as if they want open borders in the UK.”
