The accommodation in Kigali will now be used as an administrative building to oversee the implementation of the US agreement
A hostel refurbished using millions in British taxpayers’ money as part of the UK’s failed Rwanda scheme will be repurposed and used by the US as part of the country’s new deportation deal with Donald Trump.
Sources in Rwanda told The i Paper that the Hope Hostel in the capital, Kigali, will now be used as an administrative building to oversee the implementation of the US agreement.
Rwanda has agreed to accept 250 migrants deported from the US under Trump’s mass removal programme.
The i Paper understands that the Hope Hostel will not be used to house people deported from the US in the long run, as new accommodation is being built. However, it will function as an administrative hub once the scheme is up and running, sources said.
So far one man originally from Iraq and sent from the US to Rwanda is believed to have been temporarily housed in the Hope Hostel while work on the new accommodation is completed – but he does not form part of the 250 deported migrants that will arrive from America.
Inside a dining room at the Hope Hostel (Photo: Cyrile Ndegeya/Anadolu via Getty)
The hostel, which once held survivors of the country’s 1994 genocide, had undergone renovations worth approximately £20m of UK taxpayer money and was due to be used for migrants and asylum seekers relocated from the UK, as well as local Rwandans.
Boris Johnson’s government forged the deal with Rwanda to deport asylum seekers to the East African country in 2022 and under the Conservatives, the Home Office refused to set out the full cost of the scheme, though an official letter in 2023 stated it had reached £290m.
Home secretary Yvette Cooper axed the policy last year after Labour came to power, describing it as “the biggest waste of taxpayer money I have ever seen”.
She told the Commons that the final cost had reached £700m, with just four people travelling to Rwanda voluntarily from the UK during its operation.
The Rwandan Government is perceived to be keen to put the infrastructure set up for the British migration agreement to use, after the deal was axed, a Rwandan human rights worker with knowledge of the new deal said.
This is believed to include the Hope Hostel and an IT system – which the UK invested more than £130m into – set up to manage the scheme, which has never been used.
A Rwandan government spokesperson said US deportees will be provided with workforce training, health care, and accommodation support “to jump-start their lives in Rwanda”.
Despite Trump initially claiming violent criminals will be deported, this deal with Rwanda gives it “the ability to approve each individual proposed for resettlement”, the spokesperson added.