A pilot gestures from the grounded Boeing 767 flight EC-LZO, initially intended to deport Rwandan asylum seekers, at Boscombe Down airbase in Boscombe Down, England, on June 14. The flight carrying UK asylum seekers to Rwanda was grounded at the last moment, following the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights.
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A pilot gestures from the grounded Boeing 767 flight EC-LZO, initially intended to deport Rwandan asylum seekers, at Boscombe Down airbase in Boscombe Down, England, on June 14. The flight carrying UK asylum seekers to Rwanda was grounded at the last moment, following the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights.
Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
LONDON — The High Court in London delivered a long-awaited ruling on Monday finding that a controversial British immigration policy was lawful, months after the UK government first laid out the plan to deport hundreds of would-be asylum seekers. to Rwanda, where their claims would be heard. and decided by the Rwandan authorities.
The court concluded that the scheme did not breach Britain’s legal obligations under domestic law and the UN Refugee Convention, but that the country’s Home Secretary must in future carefully consider the circumstances of applicants. individual asylum seekers if their cases are to be heard in Rwanda rather than the UK
The judges wrote in their decision that Priti Patel, a former home secretary who served under Boris Johnson, had implemented the policy “faultily” in several of the cases the court considered.
British immigration lawyers and human rights groups launched a series of legal challenges shortly after the policy was announced in April, insisting that people who had come to Britain to seek asylum could face potential rights violations at the hands of from the Rwandan authorities.
The first chartered plane designed to carry dozens of migrants slated for deportation late this summer was left completely empty, after each individual was able to challenge grounds for removal from Britain, some just minutes before their scheduled departure.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, like those led by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss before him this year, has struggled to deal with the growing number of migrants arriving in southern England, whether by small boat or truck from France. .
In the year to June 2022, the UK’s national statistics office recorded more than half a million net immigrant arrivals via government-approved routes, up from 173,000 the year before. Meanwhile, more than 45,000 migrants have arrived by small boat across the English Channel from France so far this year, compared with fewer than 30,000 in 2021.
The partnership with Rwanda, whereby Britain’s Home Office would pay the African nation to handle asylum claims, was apparently intended to deter future arrivals into the UK via routes so dangerous, which the British government calls from “illegal.“
But international organizations like UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, expressed concern about the proposalhow it was made officials within the British government’s own bureaucracy.
Underscoring the urgency of the situation, an inflatable boat ran into difficulties some 30 miles west of the port city of Dover in the early hours of a frosty morning on December 1. 14. Dozens of people were pulled out of the water alive, but at least four died, despite a large and swift 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, tells NPR he came to Britain over the summer as a stowaway in the back of a truck. Police handcuffed him shortly after his arrival, he says, and it took more than two months before lawyers obtained him bail.
“I didn’t imagine that when I arrived they were going to put handcuffs on me, as if I were a criminal,” he says.
Sophie Lucas, one of the lawyers working at the Duncan Lewis law firm representing him, says Britain’s entire deportation policy must be prevented from taking effect.
“We are looking to make sure that none of our clients are transferred to Rwanda,” says Lucas. “It is deeply distressing to have this prospect of being transferred to a country where they have no connection and where their fundamental rights may not be respected.”
