Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel has stood by her plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda despite being urged to change course in talks with the United Nations refugee agency.
Ms Patel defended the scheme at a meeting in Geneva with UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi, Rwanda’s Foreign Minister Vincent Biruta and other diplomats, insisting she was trying to save lives by deterring dangerous English Channel crossings.
But Mr Grandi, who said his agency was proposing “concrete alternatives” to Ms Patel, did not back down on his criticism of a plan which he and some activists consider a potential breach of international refugee law.
“Shifting asylum responsibilities is not the solution,” he said after the talks ended with no sign of the two sides seeing eye-to-eye.
Ms Patel, who overruled concerns from her department’s top official to announce the Rwanda plan last month, promised to work with UN agencies but maintained that the deportations would not break human rights laws.
The partnership with Rwanda would "deter criminality, exploitation and abuse, while supporting the humane and respectful treatment of refugees”, she said after briefing US, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand officials on the deal.
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