THE UK Government has announced a new plan to send asylum seekers who cross the Channel in small boats to get to the UK for processing in Rwanda.

Home secretary Priti Patel is expected to sign a deal with the East African nation during a visit on Thursday, April 14, with people seeking sanctuary in the UK to be sent more than 4,000 miles away.

Some of those who make the perilous crossing of the Channel, as well as by other means deemed “illegal” by the UK Government, would be sent to Rwanda while their claims are assessed “offshore”.

An initial £120 million is expected to be given to the Rwandan government under a trial scheme.

South Wales Argus: £120m is expected to be given to the Rwandan government for this plan (PA)£120m is expected to be given to the Rwandan government for this plan (PA)

Asylum seekers who remain in the UK while their claims are considered could be housed in stricter reception centres under the plans. The first will reportedly open in the village of Linton-on-Ouse, in North Yorkshire.

What was the response to the Rwanda asylum processing plan?

News of the scheme quickly drew derision from the Opposition as well as refugee advocates, including the Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler, who told the BBC it would not work.

“I really worry that this is not the right way to treat asylum seekers. We have an international duty under the Refugee Convention to look after asylum seekers well. They are big issues. They’ve got to tackled and I don’t think this is the way to do it,” he said.

“I remain to be convinced that it’s going to be deterrent in any way.”

Human rights campaigners have described the UK Government’s plan as “barbaric”, “cowardly” “shockingly ill-conceived”.

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK’s refugee and migrant rights director, said that the African nation had a “dismal human rights record”.

In a statement to the PA news agency, Mr Valdez-Symonds said: “Sending people to another country – let alone one with such a dismal human rights record – for asylum ‘processing’ is the very height of irresponsibility and shows how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues.

“The Government is already wrecking our asylum system at huge cost to the taxpayer while causing terrible anxiety to the people stuck in the backlogs it has created.”

“But this shockingly ill-conceived idea will go far further in inflicting suffering while wasting huge amounts of public money.”

Boris Johnson is set to argue in a speech on Thursday that action is needed to combat the “vile people smugglers” turning the ocean into a “watery graveyard”.

Ms Patel is then expected to set out further details of a “migration and economic development partnership” with Rwanda, during a visit to the capital of Kigali.

It is thought the asylum seekers will be encouraged to relocate and rebuild their lives in Rwanda, rather than the UK, with more information on how the arrangement will work anticipated in the coming days.

The expected deal with Rwanda comes after other locations touted – including Ascension Island, Albania and Gibraltar – were rejected, at times angrily by the nations suggested.

Peers could mount fresh resistance to the measure, having already inflicted a series of defeats to the Government’s Nationality and Borders Bill.

The legislation is currently in a tussle between the Commons and the Lords after peers defeated ministers, including with a demand that offshore asylum claims should be subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament.