The cost of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda, according to the UK, is £169,000.

According to an impact assessment released on Tuesday, the controversial UK plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda will cost £169,000 ($210,000) per person, despite the government’s insistence that it would recover most of the costs.

Immigration reform is a top goal for the UK’s Conservative government, and it was a fundamental pledge made as the nation exited the EU.

In order to dissuade thousands of migrants from traveling across the Channel on small boats, it intends to criminalize any asylum claims made by unauthorized entrants and send them to “safe” third nations, like Rwanda.

The government claimed that by cutting back on asylum help, savings of up to £165,000 would be realized.

Additionally, London thinks the initiative will serve as a deterrence.

To get support for the law in parliament, the administration has emphasized the expense of hosting asylum seekers while their claims are being adjudicated.

According to the estimate of the interior ministry, the first expense of moving a person to a third country will be roughly £169,000, which includes a payment of £105,000 to the host nation as well as airfare and administrative fees.

However, it also stated that sending each asylum seeker to Rwanda or another third country would save an estimated £106,000 in costs over the course of four years.

If lodging expenses continue to climb at the trend rate seen since 2019, this might increase to £165,000, it was stated.

The evaluation stated that the numbers were “highly uncertain” and that in order for the expenditures to be recovered, the strategy would need to prevent about 37% of small boat crossings.

– “Hardship” – In 2022, more than 45,000 migrants traveled in small boats to reach the southeast coast of England. This represents a 60% annual increase on a perilous path that has seen an increase in traffic every year since 2018.

Beyond the price tag, the proposed law, which is presently up for discussion in parliament, has drawn criticism for how it would affect refugees in Rwanda.

Enver Solomon, director of the Refugee Council, stated that if the bill were to be passed in its present form, tens of thousands of refugees would be denied access to the protection to which they are legally entitled.

It would be difficult, expensive in the billions of pounds, and have no effect on easing the current problem or the strains on the asylum system.

The Rwanda proposal, announced by the EU’s separate European Court of Human Rights last year, was abruptly halted. Boris Johnson was the then-prime minister.

The government plan is still bogged down in legal issues. There haven’t been any deportation flights to Rwanda until date.

On Thursday, judges in London will issue their ruling regarding the scheme’s legality.

Rights organizations charge Rwanda, which has been ruled by President Paul Kagame with an iron fist since the end of the 1994 genocide that claimed about 800,000 lives, with repressing free expression and opposition.