(London) British justice declared on Thursday “illegal” the controversial plan to deport migrants who arrived illegally in the United Kingdom to Rwanda, a severe snub to a flagship measure of the Conservative government to discourage illegal immigration.
This decision can still be appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeal considered that Rwanda cannot as it stands be considered a “safe third country”, because “the deficiencies of the asylum system (there) are such” that there may be “a risk real that people sent to Rwanda are sent back to their country of origin”.
The fight against illegal immigration is one of the priorities of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government.
Despite Brexit promises to “take back control”, more than 45,000 migrants crossed the English Channel from France in small boats in 2022, a record. And they are already more than 11,000 this year to have done the same.
Last December, the High Court in London gave the green light to the project to deport some of them to Rwanda, a project since stopped due to legal appeals, judging the legal device.
But the judges had accepted that the appeal of several applicants and the Charity Aid association, which provides legal support to asylum seekers, be examined.
Persecution fears
Among the points submitted to the appeal court, the question of whether the plan is “systemically unfair” and whether asylum seekers should be prevented from being deported to a country where they risk being persecuted .
During the hearing in April, the plaintiffs’ lawyers had discredited the “excessive deference” of the first judges to the assurances given on the protection of migrants against torture or inhuman treatment.
Interior ministry lawyers responded by citing Rwanda’s willingness to “cooperate with international monitoring mechanisms” and London’s confidence in the assurances provided by Kigali.
In 2021, 27 people lost their lives trying to cross the English Channel, one of the busiest straits in the world. At least four others died last year.
The plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was announced when Boris Johnson was prime minister. The government had concluded the agreement with Kigali providing for the expulsion of migrants in the hope of discouraging these crossings.
However, no deportation has yet taken place, a first flight scheduled for June 2022 had been canceled after a decision by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) calling for a thorough review of this policy.
The government recently acknowledged that these evictions would cost nearly 200,000 euros per person.
But the ministry estimates that over four years, it could save 106,000 pounds sterling (123,290 euros) for each asylum seeker, in particular on accommodation costs.
For the project to be profitable, two out of five migrants would have to be deterred from crossing the Channel, according to these data.