UK’s Home Secretary, James Cleverly, and Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta signed a treaty that is expected to address all the concerns that blocked the UK government's Rwanda asylum scheme in the Supreme Court.  Cleverly’s trip to Kigali comes after the Supreme Court ruling in November that questioned Rwanda’s safety and stated that there were fears that refugees sent to the country faced a risk of being returned to their home countries.  Rwanda had claimed that the court’s ruling was unfair to Rwanda and undermined the country’s efforts to help refugees from across the globe find a hom

UK’s Home Secretary, James Cleverly, and Rwandan Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta signed a treaty that is expected to address all the concerns that blocked the UK government's Rwanda asylum scheme in the Supreme Court. 

Cleverly’s trip to Kigali comes after the Supreme Court ruling in November that questioned Rwanda’s safety and stated that there were fears that refugees sent to the country faced a risk of being returned to their home countries. 

Rwanda had claimed that the court’s ruling was unfair to Rwanda and undermined the country’s efforts to help refugees from across the globe find a home. Rwanda is currently a haven for Sudanese, and Afghani school girls, asylum seekers who were previously stranded in the Mediterranean Sea, and refugees from DR Congo and Burundi. 

After Secretary Cleverly and Minister Biruta signed the treaty, the UK government released a statement announcing further amendments meant to “address the court's concerns”.The UK government is planning to unveil emergency legislation to try and heed further legal challenges. 

UK’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak had said that the new treaty would protect against the removal of asylum seekers from Rwanda back to their home country. Here is what you need to know about the new treaty: 

The treaty "ensures that people relocated to Rwanda from the UK are not at risk of being returned to a country where their life or freedom would be threatened. It also enhances the functions of the independent monitoring committee "to ensure compliance with the obligations in the treaty such as reception conditions. 

So far, there is no fixed timeline. Asked if the government can guarantee migrants will arrive in Rwanda before mid-next year, Secretary Cleverly says: "We intend to stop the boats as quickly as possible. I'm not going to set a deadline, I want to do it straight away".

There are still 109,422 asylum cases awaiting a decision – of which 28,318 are from people who applied after the Illegal Migration Act took effect in April 2022. That means there are nearly 30,000 people in the system who are theoretically in the queue awaiting removal to Rwanda.

Numbers have come down compared to last year, but more than 29,000 people have still arrived in the UK on small boats this year. As of 4 December, 29,090 people have made the journey so far this year.

There will be a monitoring committee to enable asylum seekers to lodge confidential complaints directly to them and a new appeal body made up of judges from around the world.

Both countries signed the deal in April 2022. Under the agreement, any migrants who enter the UK through unofficial means - for example crossing the Channel in small boats - would be removed from the UK, banned from future re-entry, and barred from applying for British citizenship.

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