Group Seeks Injunction to Block Migrant Deportations to Rwanda Next Week

A drone photo showing a group of illegal immigrants react as they succeeded to get on an inflatable dinghy, to leave the coast of northern France and to cross the English Channel, in Wimereux near Calais, France, on Dec. 16, 2021. (Pascal Rossignol/Reuters)

A coalition comprised of activist human rights organisations and a union has submitted papers at the High Court in London on Wednesday to get an injunction to halt next week’s planned deportation of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda.

In April this year, fuelled by record numbers of migrants crossing the Channel on small boats, the British government signed a memorandum of understanding with Rwanda to set up a new procedure for transferring asylum seekers to the east African country, where they can be granted asylum or given access to other routes of settling down.

The first flight taking the migrants to Rwanda is expected next week.

In a statement, Care4Calais, which delivers emergency aid to refugees in Calais and areas affected by the European migrant crisis, wrote that along with the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and Detention Action, they have issued judicial review proceedings at the High Court, challenging the Rwanda plan as “unlawful.”

The PCS is the UK trade union for civil and public servants and private sector workers on government contracts, the sixth-largest in the country. Detention Action is an organisation that challenges immigration detention.

“We are represented by Duncan Lewis Solicitors. said lawyers had now submitted papers seeking a judicial review of the scheme, and an injunction to block the June 14 flight,” wrote Care4Calais.

The Rwanda removals policy will be challenged over Home Secretary Priti Patel’s legal authority to carry out the removals as well as the rationality of the Secretary of State’s conclusion that Rwanda is generally a “safe third country.”

The adequacy of provision for malaria prevention and whether the plan complies with the Human Rights Act will also be challenged.

Care4Calais wrote on Twitter that it has heard that a total of 130 people have been issued with Rwanda notices by the government.

“We are now working with 100 people in detention who have been told they are going to Rwanda. Seven have been told it’s imminent and 13 have told by June 14,” it wrote.

A Home Office spokesperson told The Epoch Times by email that the government fully expects the first flight to go ahead. On May 14, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the government was expecting “a lot of legal opposition” but will “dig in for the fight.”

“Our world-leading Partnership with Rwanda is a key part of our strategy to overhaul the broken asylum system. We have been clear from the start that we expected legal challenges however we are determined to deliver this new partnership,” he said.

“We have now issued formal directions to the first group of people due to be relocated to Rwanda later this month. This marks a critical step towards operationalising the policy, which fully complies with international and national law,” he added.

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, told The Epoch Times by email that he believed that challenges were “legal chicanery.”

“This is disgraceful. Let’s hope the poor old taxpayer is not having to pay through legal aid for what is little more than a blatant attempt to thwart the enforcement of laws only recently passed. The public will be disgusted by such legal chicanery,” said Mehmet.

Lily Zhou contributed to this report.