LONDON: Judges at London’s High Court in the UK will decide on Monday (today) whether the British government’s plan to transfer asylum seekers to Rwanda is legitimate, as UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak risks his career on stopping a record number of migrant arrivals in small boats.
A contract reached in April calls for sending thousands of illegal immigrants who land on British soil more than 4,000 miles (6,400 km), to Rwanda. A last-minute injunction from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) caused the first scheduled deportation flight to be delayed in June. The strategy’s legality was subsequently questioned in a legal review at London’s High Court.
At 10:30 GMT, judges Jonathan Swift and Clive Lewis are scheduled to announce their decision. Even if the government wins on Monday, flights won’t be able to take off immediately because there may be another appeal in the British courts and the ECHR injunction put in place over the summer prevents any deportations from happening right away until the UK legal case is resolved.
UK lawmakers’ opposition to proposal
One of Sunak’s first significant policy declarations outlined a plan to crack down on illegal immigration and declared his desire to resume flights to Rwanda despite opposition from lawmakers from all major political parties, the UN, and even King Charles.
An all-time high of over 40,000 individuals arrived from France this year, many of whom had come to Britain from war-torn Afghanistan, Iran, or other nations. To deal with the arrivals, the prime minister is coming under increasing pressure from the public and his own members of parliament.
According to polls, after the economy and health, immigration has moved up voters’ list of concerns to take third place. The latest in a string of tragedies on the water between Britain and France, four migrants perished in the Channel this week when their dinghy started to sink, highlighting the government’s inability to stop the crossings.
In hearings this year, lawyers representing asylum seekers from nations like Syria, Sudan, and Iraq, as well as nonprofits and Border Force employees, testified before the High Court that the government’s Rwanda policy was inhumane and did not adhere to human rights conventions.
In asserting that Rwanda, whose own human rights record is under investigation, does not have the capacity to process the applications and that there is a risk that some migrants may be sent back to the countries they had fled, they cited concerns stated by the government officials themselves.
According to Britain, the Rwanda deportation strategy will help prevent migrants from making the risky journey across the English Channel and will destroy the business model of networks that traffic migrants.
Supporters of the Rwanda agreement claim that relocating migrants there will ease processing center congestion and provide real refugees with a place to live.
Tens of thousands of people have nevertheless continued to arrive in Britain ever since the policy was announced, and up until recently, Rwanda had only opened one hostel with a capacity for about 100 people to receive UK. arrivals, which accounted for 0.35 percent of all migrants who arrived in Britain on small boats in 2017.
The plan is loosely based on Australia’s policy of processing migrants in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. Except for unaccompanied minors, anyone determined to have entered Britain illegally is subject to deportation under the terms of the agreement with Rwanda. Deported individuals who receive protection from Rwanda’s government are eligible to reside there but cannot travel back to the UK. — AFP/APP
