“I went to Calais and witnessed our government's cruel approach to immigration policy first hand”

As the first Rwanda flight is scheduled to depart soon, RAMP Principal and Sheffield Hallam MP Olivia Blake reflects on her recent visit to Calais with a delegation of parliamentarians from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration. In an article for the local Sheffield magazine ‘now then’, Olivia Blake wishes to ‘amplify the voices of the young people whose lives will be impacted’ by the UK offshoring deal with Rwanda. Having heard first hand from asylum seekers about their risky journeys and determination to settle in the UK given crucial family and language ties, Olivia Blake argues that the Rwanda policy will not work as a deterrent that would stop deaths in the Channel. Even more importantly than the questionable effectiveness of the policy, she claims, the Rwanda deal raises the moral issue that ‘deporting people seeking refuge against their will is wrong’.

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