UK: Rwanda refugee ruling is 'bitterly disappointing'
Amnesty International UKDec 19, 2022
After being blocked in June by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the UK's controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda was ruled legal on Monday by London's High Court. The policy, announced in April, will send tens of thousands of migrants to the African nation.
Lord Justice Lewis stated that the program was "consistent with the refugee convention," but added that the cases of the first few asylum-seekers set for deportation needed to be reconsidered by home secretary Suella Braverman before flights take off.
This latest ruling not only wrongly interprets international refugee law and ignores migrants' rights to seek protection in the UK, but it approves a deal to send vulnerable people to a nation with its own asylum and human rights violations. British taxes will now be wasted on a cruel, expensive and devastatingly ineffective deportation scheme. This is a damaging distraction from truly combating criminal gangs.
This program offers a real chance to end a crisis that many Britons on the left and right have grown to agree on. Since migrants likely won't want to pay thousands of pounds for a trip just to be sent back later, the Rwandan deal could not only see successful deportations now but a stoppage in future attempts to enter the UK illegally.