British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has remained adamant on the controversial migration deal, promising to start sending asylum seekers to Rwanda within 10 to 12 weeks.

This would happen after parliament passed long-awaited legislation that would make it easier to remove people who come to Britain illegally.

The Supreme Court ruled the policy illegal in November, but Sunak says the new law is more important than any legal issues. This is how he plans to keep his promise to stop people coming across the Channel in small boats.

Sunak also said he would stop people from taking small boats across the Channel, which is a dangerous route that goes for about 20 miles (32 km). Last year, more than 29,000 people came this way. In 2022, a record 45,775 refugees came this way.

For many Britons, leaving the European Union in 2016 meant taking back control of Britain’s borders and stopping people from freely moving into the country but reports show the situation remains a problem. There have been 6,265 people found so far this year, which is almost 25% more than the same time last year.

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed to the plan in April 2022. It sends anyone who came to Britain illegally after January 1, 2022, to Rwanda, which is about 4,000 miles (6,400 km) away.

Nevertheless, European courts stopped the first flight of people being sent back to their home countries in June 2022. The Supreme Court then supported a decision that the plan was illegal because migrants could be sent back to their home countries or to other countries where they would be mistreated.

Sunak said that the government had reserved commercial charter planes, ready an airfield, and trained staff to take migrants to Rwanda. He said that the first flight would leave in 10 to 12 weeks, but his party thinks that the new law doesn’t go far enough to stop asylum seekers from being able to appeal against being sent back to their home country.

Because of the law, British courts won’t be able to decide if Rwanda is safe, but they might have to decide on specific cases on their own, though only for very narrow reasons.

“If it ever comes to a choice between our national security — securing our borders — and membership of a foreign court, I’m, of course, always going to prioritise our national security,” Sunak said.

Britain has already paid Rwanda more than 200 million pounds ($304 million), and it could cost more than 600 million pounds to resettle about 300 people. At this point, about 50,000 people could be sent there, but it’s still unclear how many people Rwanda can hold.

United Nations head of human rights on Friday called on countries to take real steps toward reparations for people of African descent. He appealed while adding his voice to calls for justice for the horrible crimes committed during slavery.

African and Caribbean countries are becoming more in favour of setting up a panel to deal with reparations for crimes that happened during the transatlantic slave trade. Reparations could include money payments and other forms of making amends.

“I join your demands for action now,” United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in an address at the closing of the four-day U.N. Permanent Forum on People of African Descent (PFPAD).

“On reparations, we must finally enter a new era. Governments must step up to show true leadership with genuine commitments to move swiftly from words to action that will adequately address the wrongs of the past.”

Although Turk did not say how reparations should be handled, he however expressed support for the group but is not one of its 10 members.

The idea of making reparations has become more popular but remains controversial, and most countries that used to colonize others do not agree with it with some expressing remorse for being part of the transatlantic slave trade and planning a 200 million euro fund to make up for it.

A spokesman for the British Foreign Office recently admitted that the country was responsible for transatlantic slavery, but there were no plans to pay reparations because “today’s challenges” should be the focus.

The PFPAD, which can’t make laws but can give advice to other U.N. groups, released its findings on Friday and reiterated as it did in 2023, that a court should be set up to deal with slavery. This time, it said that the General Assembly, which makes policy for the UN, should be used to ask for this.

It specifically asked the proposed court to look into what happened in Haiti “and provide reparations, restitution, and compensation appropriately.” This came after Haitian groups at the forum asked France to repay the billions of dollars that people who had been slaves were forced to pay in exchange for the island’s independence being recognized two hundred years ago.

Lately, there has been the return of some “stolen” artefacts by colonialists to some African countries like Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria.

Over 90% of the world’s 193 countries of the world were colonized by notable eleven – Belgium, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, The Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, and the United States of America.