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Agence France-Presse

The British government was to send a first plane carrying failed asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday despite last-gasp legal bids and protests against the controversial policy.
A chartered plane was to leave one of London’s airports overnight and land in Kigali on Tuesday, campaigners said, after UK judges rejected an appeal against the deportations.
Claimants had argued that a decision on the policy should have waited until a full hearing on the legality of the policy next month.
But amid legal challenges, only a few people were scheduled to leave on that first plane.
Initially, some 37 individuals were scheduled to be removed on the first flight, which charities said included people fleeing Afghanistan and Syria as well as Iran and Iraq.
But the charity Care4Calais said that number had fallen to just six, with at least three High Court appeals for individuals scheduled for Tuesday.
UK government accused of trying to deport minors to Rwanda
Other claimants included the Public and Commercial Services Union, whose members will have to implement the removals, and immigration support group Detention Action.
PCS chief Mark Serwotka said on Sunday it would be “an appalling situation” if Tuesday’s removals were subsequently found to be illegal at the full hearing.
Home Secretary Priti Patel should wait for the July hearing if she “had any respect, not just for the desperate people who come to this country, but for the workers she employs”, Serwotka told Sky News.
Protesters gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice and the Home Office on Monday.
In Geneva, UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi called the UK government policy “all wrong” and said it should not be “exporting its responsibility to another country”.
Church of England leaders, including the most senior cleric the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, reiterated criticism of the policy as “one that should shame us as a nation”.

“Our Christian heritage should inspire us to treat asylum seekers with compassion, fairness and justice, as we have for centuries,” Welby and 24 other bishops wrote in Tuesday’s Times newspaper.
“This immoral policy shames Britain.”
“Evil trafficking” must be combated by providing safe routes to the UK to “reduce dangerous journeys”, The Times quoted the bishops as saying ahead of the letter’s publication.
Priti Patel: UK home secretary who wants asylum seekers sent to Rwanda
Patel and Prime Minister Boris Johnson insist the policy is needed to stop a flood of all-too-often deadly migrant crossings of the Channel from France.
“It’s very important that the criminal gangs who are putting people’s lives at risk in the Channel understand that their business model is going to be broken,” Johnson told LBC radio on Monday.
“They’re selling people falsely, luring them into something that is extremely risky and criminal.”

Under the agreement with Kigali, anyone landing in the UK illegally is liable to be given a one-way ticket for processing and resettlement in Rwanda.
The government says that genuine asylum claimants should be content to stay in France.
And contradicting the UN refugee agency UNHCR, it insists that Rwanda is a safe destination with the capacity to absorb possibly tens of thousands of UK-bound claimants in future.
British PM Johnson to send asylum seekers to Rwanda
Doris Uwicyeza, chief technical adviser to Rwanda’s justice ministry, pushed back against criticism of the human rights record of President Paul Kagame’s government – which is set this month to host a Commonwealth summit attended by Prince Charles and Johnson.
Rwanda’s 1994 genocide made it particularly attentive to “protecting anybody from hate speech and discrimination”, including gay people, she told LBC radio.
British newspapers reported that Prince Charles had dubbed the plan “appalling”.
The reported comment prompted unnamed cabinet ministers to tell Queen Elizabeth’s heir to stay out of politics.
International NGO Human Rights Watch issued a public letter warning that “to this day, serious human rights abuses continue to occur in Rwanda, including repression of free speech, arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture”.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Associated Press


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Britain

UK sending first asylum seekers to Rwanda after London court refuses to halt deportation plan

A protester outside the Home Office in central London. The British government was to send a first plane carrying failed asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday. Photo: AFP 

A protester communicates with those inside Brook House immigration removal centre, beside Gatwick Airport, south of London. Photo: AFP

Prime Minister Boris Johnson insists the policy is needed to stop a flood of all-too-often deadly migrant crossings of the Channel from France. Photo: dpa

UK government accused of trying to deport unaccompanied minors to Rwanda

People prepare to disembark at Dover Docks after British Border Force Officials picked up a boat carrying migrants in the English Channel, in Dover, Britain. Photo: EPA-EFE

Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel at Buckingham Palace, London on Saturday. Photo: AFP

Priti Patel: the UK home secretary who wants asylum seekers sent to Rwanda

British Home Secretary Priti Patel. Photo: Reuters

Britain’s Home Secretary Priti Patel and Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta. Photo: AP

A group of people thought to be migrants in Dover, southeastern England, after a small boat incident in the English Channel. Photo: dpa

Migrants in the English Channel, off the coast of northern France in 2020. File photo: AFP 

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a visit to the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Dover, southeast England. Photo: AFP

Britain’s Rwanda plan might not deter migrants, says UK Home Office official

Migrants arrive after crossing the English Channel in Dover, UK on April 15. Photo: EPA-EFE

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First Britain-Rwanda flight of migrants expected on Tuesday despite last-gasp legal bids
UK says deportation policy will stop Channel crossings, but human rights groups say it is inhumane



The British government was to send a first plane carrying failed asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday despite last-gasp legal bids and protests against the controversial policy.


Human rights

Boris Johnson

UK sending first asylum seekers to Rwanda after London court refuses to halt deportation plan

.css-1mniedq{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;} First Britain-Rwanda flight of migrants expected on Tuesday despite last-gasp legal bids UK says deportation policy will stop Channel crossings, but human rights groups say it is inhumane

First Britain-Rwanda flight of migrants expected on Tuesday despite last-gasp legal bids

UK says deportation policy will stop Channel crossings, but human rights groups say it is inhumane