A pilot gestures from the grounded flight EC-LZO Boeing 767, originally intended to deport Rwandan asylum seekers, at Boscombe Down Air Force Base in Boscombe Down, England on June 14. The flight carrying asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was grounded at the last minute, after the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights.
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A pilot gestures from the grounded flight EC-LZO Boeing 767, originally intended to deport Rwandan asylum seekers, at Boscombe Down Air Force Base in Boscombe Down, England on June 14. The flight carrying asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was grounded at the last minute, after the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
LONDON — London’s High Court delivered a long-awaited ruling on Monday that found a controversial British immigration policy to be legal, months after the British government first presented the plan to deport hundreds of potential asylum seekers to Rwanda, where their claims would be heard. and decided by the Rwandan authorities.
The court found that the plan did not breach Britain’s legal obligations under national law and the UN Refugee Convention, but that the country’s Home Secretary owes the future carefully consider the situation of individual asylum seekers whether their cases are to be heard in Rwanda rather than the UK
The judges wrote in their ruling that Priti Patel, a former home secretary who served under Boris Johnson’s premiership, implemented the policy ‘imperfectly’ in several of the cases before the court .
British immigration lawyers and human rights groups had launched a series of legal challenges soon after the policy was announced in April, insisting that people who arrived in Britain for seeking asylum could face possible violations of their rights by the Rwandan authorities.
The first chartered plane designed to carry dozens of migrants slated for deportation at the end of this summer has remained entirely empty, after each individual was able to challenge the grounds for deportation from Britain – some of them within minutes only before their scheduled departure.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, like those led by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss before it this year, has struggled to cope with the growing number of migrants arriving in southern England, whether in small boats or trucks from France.
In the year to June 2022, the UK Office for National Statistics recorded over half a million net migrant arrivals through government-approved routes, up from 173,000 in the year former. Meanwhile, more than 45,000 migrants have arrived in small boats across the English Channel from France so far this year, compared to less than 30,000 in 2021.
The partnership with Rwanda, whereby the UK Home Office would pay the African nation to process asylum claims, was apparently intended to deter future arrivals to the UK via such dangerous routes – which the UK government calls of “illegal.“
But international organizations, including UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, raised concerns about the proposalas did civil servants within the UK government bureaucracy.
Underlining the urgency of the situation, a rubber boat ran into difficulty about 30 miles west of the port city of Dover in the early hours of a freezing morning on December 11. 14 Dozens of people were pulled alive from the water, but at least four died, despite a large and rapid rescue effort. At the end of last year, a a far worse tragedy saw dozens die when another boat capsized.
A young man from Sudan, who was identified in British courts by the initials OOA, told NPR he arrived in Britain over the summer as a stowaway in the back of a truck. Police handcuffed him shortly after his arrival, he said, and he was held for more than two months before lawyers secured his release on bail.
“I never imagined that when I arrived, I would be handcuffed, as if I were a criminal,” he says.
Sophie Lucas, one of the lawyers at law firm Duncan Lewis representing him, says Britain’s entire deportation policy should be stopped from taking effect.
“We seek to ensure that none of our clients are deported to Rwanda,” explains Lucas. “It is deeply distressing to have this prospect of being deported to a country where they have no connection and where their basic rights may not be respected.”
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