Supporters of the Rwanda deportation scheme fail to understand the lessons of Australia

‘It underscores why you need a deterrent.” So claimed Rishi Sunak in response to the Channel tragedy last week that led to the deaths of five migrants off the coast of France, hours after the “ Safety of Rwanda Bill ”, Sunak’s “deterrent”, passed its final parliamentary hurdle.

“Deterrence” has become the magic word to ease through every immigration policy, however cynical, cruel or unworkable. There is only one problem. When it comes to immigration, deterrence does not deter. “The available evidence suggests that the deterrent effect of asylum policies tends to be small,” observes Oxford University’s Migration Observatory . However tough they may seem, concluded a study from the development thinktank ODI, “deterrent policies… have virtually no effect on people’s behaviour ”. Those seeking to cross the Channel “have already travelled thousands of miles and spent thousands of pounds getting to that point”; they are “unlikely to drastically rethink their ‘migration project’, regardless of how strict the UK’s border controls become”.

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Activists say little has changed in treatment of migrants and refugees under Donald Tusk’s new government

The case of a woman from Eritrea who was forced to give birth alone in the forested border area between Poland and Belarus has raised questions about the new Polish government’s response to the continuing humanitarian crisis at the border between the two countries.

The previous, rightwing government of the Law and Justice party (PiS) used the migration issue to score political points and was accused of encouraging rights abuses by guards along the border, with reports of frequent violent “pushbacks” of people to Belarus.

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Hundreds voice dismay at Sunak and Starmer, accusing them of misreading UK attitudes towards Europe

• UK politics – latest updates

Elena, 35, was “flabbergasted” when she heard that both Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer had dismissed a proposal by the European Commission to reintroduce freedom of movement for young people between the EU and the UK.

Last Friday, the prime minister rejected the post-Brexit youth mobility deal, which would have allowed Britons aged between 18 and 30 to live, study or work in the EU for up to four years, after Labour declined the offer the previous day.

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Peers pass four amendments inserting safeguards into bill, including exempting migrants who helped British troops

Good morning. It is now more than five months since Rishi Sunak promised “emergency” legislation to address the supreme court judgment saying the government’s Rwanda deportation policy was unlawful. It has not proceeded at the pace of normal emergency legislation, but the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill is now expected to clear parliament within the next 24/36 hours, and it should become law by the end of the week. (It does not became law until the king grants royal assent, and it can take a few hours to get Charles to sign the relevant bit of paper.)

But before parliamentary officials can send the bill to the Palace, the Commons and the Lords have to agree, and there are still four outstanding issues unresolved. Last night peers passed four amendments inserting safeguards into the bill. They would:

The problem is, we have no evidence that Rwanda is safe. All the evidence that is put before us demonstrates that at the moment it is not. The supreme court said in November it wasn’t safe. We signed a treaty with Rwanda which was supposed to remedy the defects, and this Act will come into force when the treaty comes into force. But even the treaty itself accepts that signing the treaty doesn’t make Rwanda safe.

All this amendment would say is that, instead of us in parliament in London being expected to assert in legislation that Rwanda is safe, when the evidence is including, from the government itself last night, that it isn’t currently safe, it’s a work in progress – instead of having to sign up to that untruth, the government would invite the monitoring committee to certify that Rwanda is safe and when it is safe, the flights can begin.

And should by any chance Rwanda ever cease to be a safe country, well the monitoring committee should say that as well.

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With a heavy focus on deterrence, the agreement shows how far Europe’s centre has shifted to the right

The Oscar-nominated Io Capitano , now showing in cinemas, is a sensitive and moving portrait of the trials faced by two teenage boys as they attempt to reach Europe, via unofficial migration routes, from their homes in Senegal. The film is unsparing in its depiction of the violence and danger they face along the way – but what it doesn’t show is how the boys’ journey is shaped by European border policy from almost the moment they set off.

Their first stop, the people-smuggling hub of Agadez, Niger, is the capital of a country into which the EU has poured millions of euros in recent years to combat smuggling. It hasn’t halted the trade entirely, but it has forced it further underground. In Libya, where the boys are tortured and trafficked by armed gangs, European governments have striven to keep migrants in place – as painstakingly documented by Sally Hayden in her recent book My Fourth Time, We Drowned – despite the dire threat to their safety.

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Rishi Sunak braced for fresh round of wrangling over plan that is due to cost taxpayers £1.8m per deportee

• UK politics – latest updates

The number of people travelling by small boat to seek asylum in the UK hit a new daily high for 2024 at the weekend, figures show, as Rishi Sunak braces for a fresh round of parliamentary wrangling over the Rwanda deportation bill.

Unions and charities are preparing to mount legal challenges if the bill, which is meant to stop the boats, passes into law this week.

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As the war in Sudan moves into its second year , 1,000 refugees a day continue to cross its southern border. Within the small town of Renk in South Sudan, a rapidly growing refugee population faces desperate shortages of water, food and shelter. For many, South Sudan marks a return to a land they thought they had left behind, having fled the country after civil war broke out in 2013. Now new fighting in their adopted country has forced them back again

• UK Foreign Office holding secret talks with Sudan’s RSF paramilitary group

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Italian coastguard rescues 22 survivors trying to cross Mediterranean and searches for missing

Nine people, including a baby, have died after their boat capsized while trying to cross the Mediterranean in stormy weather and another 15 people are feared missing, Italy’s coastguard has said.

The Italian coastguard said on Thursday it had received a cooperation request from Maltese search and rescue after the boat capsized about 30 miles (50km) south-east off the island of Lampedusa on Wednesday.

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Long-awaited package of measures marks victory for Europe’s centre albeit with ‘doubts and concerns’ over implementation

Almost a decade in the making, the EU’s new migration and asylum pact suffered so many setbacks, stalemates and rewrites that when member states finally announced a deal last year, its passage through parliament seemed assured.

That was, however, to ignore the objections of Europe’s resurgent far-right parties, who felt it was not tough enough (and, perhaps, hoped to profit at the ballot box from allowing the current chaos around migration to continue).

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