{"id":28054,"date":"2023-04-28T15:28:33","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T15:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italys-meloni-defends-britains\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T15:29:49","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T15:29:49","slug":"italys-meloni-defends-britains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/italys-meloni-defends-britains\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy’s Meloni defends Britain’s migration deal with Rwanda"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday Britain’s plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda was a deal between two free nations which are safeguarding the safety of the people, adding it was wrong to call it a deportation.<\/p>\n

Meloni, who heads a right-wing government in Rome, was talking to reporters at the Italian embassy in London after a two-day visit to the British capital during which she met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.<\/p>\n

“I think that talking about deportation or suggesting that Rwanda would be a country that does not respect rights and would be an inadequate or unworthy nation is a racist way of interpreting things,” she said.<\/p>\n

The British government is hoping to send thousands of migrants more than 4,000 miles away to the East African country as part of a 120 million pound ($150 million) deal.<\/p>\n

More than 45,000 migrants arrived in small boats on the English south coast in 2022, and Sunak has made it a priority to deter asylum seekers crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.<\/p>\n

This week lawyers for a group of asylum seekers challenged the British government’s plan before the Court of Appeal in London, claiming it is unlawful because Rwanda is not a safe country.<\/p>\n

Rome is also facing growing pressure from migrants crossing the Mediterranean, with a surge in arrivals compared to 2022. Almost 41,000 people have landed in Italy so far in 2023, against around 10,200 in the same period last year.<\/p>\n

Following a deadly shipwreck in southern Italy in February, Meloni called on fellow European Union leaders to do more to halt illegal immigration and prevent further tragedies at sea.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Angelo Amante; Editing by Keith Weir and Nick Macfie)<\/p>\n

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LONDON (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday Britain’s plan to send illegal migrants to Rwanda was a deal between two free nations which are safeguarding the safety of the people, adding it was wrong to call it a deportation. Meloni, who heads a right-wing government in Rome, was talking to reporters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1222],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-world-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportWorldNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3R0SO-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28054"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28056,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28054\/revisions\/28056"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}