UK charities seek injunction to block migrant deportations to Rwanda

Human rights groups said they had today submitted papers at the High Court in London to get an injunction to halt next week’s planned deportation of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda, a scheme that has drawn widespread criticism, Reuters reports.

Britain’s government announced in April it had struck a deal to send potentially tens of thousands of asylum seekers to the East African nation in a bid to undermine people-smuggling networks, and stem the flow of migrants risking their lives by crossing the Channel in small boats from Europe.

Irregular migrants pushed – Cartoon [Sabaaneh/Middle East Monitor]

Charities Care4Calais and Detention Action along with the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants in Britain’s interior ministry, said lawyers had now submitted papers seeking a judicial review of the scheme, and an injunction to block the 14 June flight.

“It’s vital that new government policies respect and uphold the laws that we all, as a society, have agreed to follow,” said James Wilson, deputy director of Detention Action. “That’s why we’re seeking an injunction to keep this plane to Rwanda from leaving the runway.”

There was no immediate comment from the Home Office.

Last year, more than 28,000 migrants and refugees made the crossing from mainland Europe to Britain. In November, 27 people drowned when their small rubber dinghy deflated, and many others have needed to be rescued from the narrow seaway, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

Under the government scheme, anyone who has arrived in Britain illegally since 1 January could be relocated to Rwanda, whose own human rights record has been criticised by humanitarian groups.

The plan has raised an outcry not just among human rights groups but also opposition left-wing and liberal lawmakers as well as some in Johnson’s Conservative Party.

READ: UK serves refugees with official notice they are ‘under consideration’ for deportation to Rwanda