Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the United Kingdom preparing to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda, U.S. campus protests over the Israel-Hamas war, and Taiwan’s concerns about potential Chinese military drills.
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First Detentions
British authorities began detaining migrants on Wednesday as part of a controversial immigration plan under which asylum-seekers who arrived illegally in Britain after Jan. 1, 2022, will be deported to Rwanda. Those deemed to have arrived illegally are asylum-seekers who came to the United Kingdom without authorization from another safe country, essentially meaning those who arrived by dinghy via the English Channel.
Details on timing and who will be selected for initial flights are still unclear; however, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he aims to begin departures in July, with commercial charter planes already booked and an airport now on standby. A senior U.K. minister said on Tuesday that the United Kingdom expects to deport 5,700 people this year—a number that Rwanda agreed to “in principle”—but authorities have located only around 2,100 migrants for detention so far.
“Our dedicated enforcement teams are working diligently to promptly apprehend those without lawful status so that we can expedite the departure of flights,” Home Secretary James Cleverly said Wednesday.
Under the so-called Safety of Rwanda Act, which the U.K. Parliament passed last Tuesday, the asylum-seekers will be sent to the Rwandan capital of Kigali to either be granted asylum there or be sent to a third country. The Sunak government believes that this policy will help discourage people from trying to make the dangerous trek from France across the English Channel via small dinghies. More than 7,600 migrants have arrived in Britain this year using this route, a 14 percent increase from record levels documented in 2022. Just last Tuesday, five migrants, including a child, died while trying to cross the channel.
Condemnation of the policy remains fierce, with the opposition Labour Party calling it unworkable. The U.K. Supreme Court unanimously ruled last November that the plan was unlawful, as it would put asylum-seekers at “risk of ill-treatment” because Rwanda could send them back to their countries of origin. Last week, Parliament ruled that Rwanda was a “safe country,” but concerns still stand. “This government has lost [its] last ounce of humanity,” the British charity Freedom From Torture posted on X on Wednesday.
In response to the act’s passage last week, Ireland announced that it plans to enact emergency legislation by the end of May allowing Dublin to send asylum-seekers who cross into Ireland via Northern Ireland back to the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and shares an open border with Ireland.
Senior Irish officials worry that migrants who fear being deported to Rwanda will instead travel to Ireland. This comes as Dublin already faces high European immigration numbers from Ukraine, exemplified on Wednesday when local authorities dismantled a tent city of hundreds of asylum-seekers in central Dublin. “This country will not in any way, shape, or form provide a loophole for anybody else’s migration challenges,” Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris said last Sunday.
On Tuesday, the Irish government approved a plan to redesignate the U.K. as a “safe country” for asylum-seekers to return to, paving the way for this process to begin. But Sunak is “not interested” in accepting asylum-seekers from Ireland, arguing that the U.K. will only take back these migrants if Britain establishes a broader agreement with the European Union to return them to France, where many of them begin their journeys across the English Channel.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
U.S. campus protests. Pro-Palestinian protesters at Brown University in Rhode Island dismantled their encampment on Tuesday after school officials agreed to discuss divesting funds from companies connected to Israel’s war in Gaza. They pledged to meet with student representatives and Brown’s advisory committee before voting on the measure in October—which would mark roughly one year since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Other universities have taken a more confrontational approach to the protests on their campuses. Across the United States, more than 1,000 demonstrators have been arrested over the last two weeks as students demand that their universities stop financially supporting companies linked to Israel’s war effort and stop collaborating with Israeli universities. On Tuesday, demonstrations reached a fever pitch at Columbia University, where the movement first sparked national attention, after Columbia’s president called in New York police to arrest protesters, including a group that had broken in and occupied a building on campus.
The White House denounced nonpeaceful demonstrations on Tuesday, specifically citing Columbia’s most recent protest, as well as protesters’ use of the term “intifada,” the Arabic word for uprising or rebellion, calling it “hate speech.” The White House has previously condemned calls on campuses “for violence and physical intimidation targeting Jewish students and the Jewish community.”
Military drill warnings. Taiwan’s top security official said on Wednesday that the island is on alert for potential Chinese military exercises in the region as the inauguration of Taiwanese President-elect Lai Ching-te draws near. Beijing does not recognize Taipei’s sovereignty and strongly dislikes Lai, whom it views as being in favor of Taiwan’s independence. Lai will take office on May 20.
China usually conducts military drills from June to November, which would be directly after Lai’s inauguration. In the past, Beijing has used such exercises to pressure Taiwan. The number of Chinese aircraft that crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait or entered the island’s air defense identification zone surged by 50 percent in the first six months of 2023, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. And this year alone, Taiwan has reportedly observed China carrying out nighttime “joint combat readiness patrols” three times, which Taipei says is a new development.
Crackdown on dissent. Protests against Georgia’s “foreign agents” bill escalated on Tuesday, when security forces used water cannons, tear gas, and stun grenades against demonstrators in Tbilisi, the capital. The proposed legislation, which passed its second of three parliamentary readings on Wednesday, would require nongovernmental organizations and media outlets that receive more than 20 percent of their funding from abroad to register as “agents of foreign influence.”
Locals reported physical attacks against protesters, including Levan Khabeishvili, the leader of Georgia’s largest opposition party, the United National Movement. He posted a photo on X early Wednesday of his bloodied face. Rights activists argue that the bill is similar to legislation in Russia that the Kremlin uses to crack down on dissent. The ruling Georgian Dream party hopes to sign the bill into law by mid-May.
What Do the Experts Say?
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke with FP’s editor in chief, Ravi Agrawal, on Wednesday to discuss the U.S. Congress’s recent approval of around $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, Kyiv’s efforts to join NATO and the EU, and China’s economic and military cooperation with Russia, among other topics. Below is an edited excerpt. Read or watch the full interview here.
Ravi Agrawal: Does the [U.S.] aid package change your military strategy?
Dmytro Kuleba: When I look at what Russia achieved in restoring the production of its defenders’ industrial base and what the entire West has achieved so far, we have to face the truth and recognize that Russia is more effective in its war effort. And this raises a more fundamental question to the West: If it cannot be efficient enough in this particular war effort, then how efficient can it be if other wars and crises of the same scale break out?
RA: What would it take for Beijing to change its approach to Russia and its so-called “no limits” friendship with Moscow?
DK: Appeasement is not the solution. I think you are absolutely correct in assuming that China has leverage on Russia. China can do more to convince Russia to change its behavior. And we, along with other European leaders, are talking with them about that. This is why we invited China to take part in the peace formula summit.
Odds and Ends
Travelers looking for an Instagram-perfect picture of Mount Fuji may want to reconsider stopping at the Japanese town of Fujikawaguchiko. Local officials began constructing a large black screen along a popular photo spot on Tuesday to block Mount Fuji from view of misbehaving tourists, who have been accused of littering, ignoring traffic rules, and trespassing on private property. Past crowd control methods, such as posting signs and hiring security, have not worked.
The post U.K. Detains Asylum-Seekers for Deportation to Rwanda appeared first on Foreign Policy.
