British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced a thumping defeat in the House of Lords over his legislation to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The upper chamber voted in favor of amendments demanding that flights can only leave when a treaty ensuring legal safeguards in Rwanda is fully implemented.
The Lords also approved an amendment stating that the legislation must fully comply with international and domestic law. The chamber passed another amendment verifying Rwanda's safety for refugees before allowing flights to proceed.
The Rwandan deportation bill involves dispatching asylum seekers who arrive on England's southern coast in small boats to be relocated to the East African country. Still, no one has been deported yet due to the current legal impasse.
Despite litigations, Sunak's government is looking to pass a law through Parliament to prevent further legal hurdles by designating Rwanda as safe for asylum seekers.
However, the House of Commons, which holds more authority as the elected body, could reverse these alterations afterward through a "parliamentary ping-pong" process if the deportation bill returns for votes by the MPs. Certain Lords disapproved of the existing law, arguing that it deems Rwanda safe without adequate evidence.
In 2023, the UK Supreme Court determined the deportation scheme was illegal because it would breach British and international human rights laws, citing flaws in the Rwandan system. According to the British government's spending watchdog the National Audit Office, deporting the first 300 refugees would cost over £600 million.
Sunak's government's handling of the asylum crisis is part of a larger problem confronting Western countries. Most asylum seekers who reached the UK on small boats say they are fleeing conflict in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia.
"As a result of this deficiency, it is also incapable of playing a thought-out role in the affected area. Instead, individual European states, notably France and the UK, co-operated in destabilising Libya, without feeling any responsibility for managing the chaotic aftermath. Again, the Europeans were left to wring their hands as Syria and northern Iraq imploded...EU demonstrates individual divergence and collective weakness in the face of large collective challenges," writes Martin Wolf, chief economic commentator at the Financial Times.
This statement points to the European Union's chaotic response to the 2015 refugee crisis. The bloc's individual and collective weaknesses contributed to its ineffective response, and the European migration crisis remains a challenge to this day.
Across the Atlantic, the US also faces a surge in migrant crossings at its southern border, leaving border officials overwhelmed. The Biden administration's mishandling of the migrant crisis has exacerbated the problem. A Senate Republican Conference publication reports that during Joe Biden's first 100 days in office, he signed a series of executive orders that relaxed immigration restrictions.
With the worsening border crisis, President Biden sought congressional approval for additional funding to reinforce Border Patrol and asylum officers' efforts. Despite this, a funding bill and aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan became bogged down in congressional talks due to partisan disagreements concerning border policies.