UK Paid Rwanda Additional $126 mln for Contested Migrant Plan

Demonstrators hold placards while protesting against the government's policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, outside the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in London, Britain, 15 November 2023. EPA/NEIL HALL
Demonstrators hold placards while protesting against the government's policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, outside the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in London, Britain, 15 November 2023. EPA/NEIL HALL
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UK Paid Rwanda Additional $126 mln for Contested Migrant Plan

Demonstrators hold placards while protesting against the government's policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, outside the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in London, Britain, 15 November 2023. EPA/NEIL HALL
Demonstrators hold placards while protesting against the government's policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, outside the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in London, Britain, 15 November 2023. EPA/NEIL HALL

Britain paid Rwanda an additional 100 million pounds ($126 million) in April, on top of 140 million pounds it previously sent, as the bill for its contested plan to relocate asylum seekers to the East African country continues to rise.
The Rwanda scheme is at the center of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's strategy to deter illegal migrants but as yet none have been moved there because of legal battles since the scheme was announced in 2022, Reuters said.
The divisive policy is now seen as a threat to Sunak's leadership - with an election expected next year - after his immigration minister resigned this week.
On top of the 240 million pounds Britain has sent to Rwanda, London is also set to pay the East African country an additional 50 million pounds next year, according to a letter published by the British interior ministry on Thursday.
The revelations about the growing cost of a policy - which legal experts have warned could yet fail - was slammed by the opposition Labour party and will likely draw fresh criticism from some lawmakers within Sunak's own party.
"Britain can’t afford more of this costly Tory chaos & farce," Labour's shadow interior minister Yvette Cooper said on social media platform X.
But the new minister for legal migration, Tom Pursglove, justified what he called the 240 million-pound "investment" on Friday, saying that once the Rwanda policy was up and running it would save on the cost of housing asylum-seekers in the UK.
"When you consider that we are unacceptably spending 8 million pounds a day in the asylum system at the moment, it is a key part of our strategy to bring those costs down," Pursglove told Sky News.
The money sent to Rwanda would help its economic development and get the asylum partnership with the UK up and running, Pursglove added.
The payments to Rwanda were not linked to a treaty the two countries signed on Tuesday, the interior ministry letter said.
The treaty seeks to respond to a ruling by Britain's Supreme Court that the deportation scheme would violate international human rights laws enshrined in domestic legislation.
"The Government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a Treaty to be signed, nor was any offered," the letter said.
Sunak appealed to his Conservative lawmakers on Thursday to unite behind his Rwanda plan after Robert Jenrick quit as immigration minister on Wednesday, saying the government's draft emergency legislation to get the scheme up and running did not go far enough.



Protesters Rally Across Spain Against Housing Crisis, Tourist Flats

05 April 2025, Spain, Madrid: People take part in a demonstration in Madrid to demand political measures to intervene in the housing market. Photo: Ignacio Lopez Isasmendi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
05 April 2025, Spain, Madrid: People take part in a demonstration in Madrid to demand political measures to intervene in the housing market. Photo: Ignacio Lopez Isasmendi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Protesters Rally Across Spain Against Housing Crisis, Tourist Flats

05 April 2025, Spain, Madrid: People take part in a demonstration in Madrid to demand political measures to intervene in the housing market. Photo: Ignacio Lopez Isasmendi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
05 April 2025, Spain, Madrid: People take part in a demonstration in Madrid to demand political measures to intervene in the housing market. Photo: Ignacio Lopez Isasmendi/ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Hundreds of thousands marched across 40 Spanish cities on Saturday to protest against soaring rents and a lack of affordable homes in a country that enjoys Europe's fastest economic growth and yet suffers from a severe housing shortage exacerbated by a tourism boom.
Spain's center-left government has struggled to find a balance between attracting tourists and migrants to fill job gaps and keeping rents affordable for average citizens, as short-term rentals have mushroomed in major cities and coastal destinations alike.
"No matter who governs, we must defend housing rights," activists shouted as they rattled keychains in Madrid, where more than 150,000 protesters marched through the capital's center, according to the local tenants' union.
Average Spanish rents have doubled and house prices swelled by 44% over the past decade, data from property website Idealista showed, far outpacing salary growth. Meanwhile, the supply of rentals has halved since the 2020 pandemic.
"They're kicking all of us out to make tourist flats," said Margarita Aizpuru, a 65-year-old resident of the popular Lavapies neighborhood. Nearly 100 families living in her block were told by the building's owners that their rental contracts would not be renewed, Reuters quoted her as saying.
Homeowners associations and experts say that current regulations discourage long-term rentals, and landlords find that renting to tourists or foreigners for days or a couple of months is more profitable and safer.
Spain received a record 94 million tourists in 2024, making it the second most-visited country in the world, as well as an influx of thousands of migrants, both of which are widening a housing deficit of 500,000 homes, the Bank of Spain has said.
According to official data, only about 120,000 new homes are built in Spain every year - a sixth of the levels before the 2008 financial crisis - worsening the already acute supply shortage.
Wendy Davila, 26, said that the problem was not just in the city center, since rents were too high "everywhere".
"It cannot be that to live in Madrid you need to share a flat with four others."