UK judge nixes first legal challenge to Rwanda deportations

U.N. officials and refugee groups have criticized the plan as unworkable and inhumane.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

LONDON (AP) — A group of asylum-seekers asked a U.K. court on Friday to stop the British government from sending them on a one-way flight to Rwanda, arguing that the controversial plan is not safe.

The four claimants, backed by refugee groups and a U.K. border staff trade union, are asking a judge to ground a flight scheduled for Tuesday, the first due to leave under a deal between the U.K. and the East African country.

They are among an unspecified number of migrants who have been told by the British government that they will be deported to Rwanda. Refugee groups say the wider group includes people fleeing Syria and Afghanistan who arrived in Britain across the English Channel on small boats.

As the hearing opened at the High Court in London, government lawyer Mathew Gullick said 37 people had been due to be aboard Tuesday’s flight, but that six had had their deportation orders canceled. He said the government still intended to operate the flight, as well as future ones.

Under a deal announced in April, Britain plans to send migrants who arrive in the U.K. as stowaways or in small boats on a one-way trip to Rwanda. There, the migrants’ asylum claims will be processed, and if successful, they will stay in the African country.

U.N. officials say such a move violates the international Refugee Convention. Human rights groups call the deal — for which the U.K. has paid Rwanda 120 million pounds ($158 million) upfront — unworkable, inhumane and a waste of British taxpayers’ money.

The claimants’ lawyer Raza Husain said “the system is not safe.”

Laura Dubinsky, a lawyer representing the U.N. refugee agency, said refugees sent to Rwanda under the program were at risk of “serious, irreparable harm.” She said the agency had “serious concerns about Rwandan capacity” to handle the arrivals.

James Wilson of Detention Action, one of the groups involved in the case, said the government was “turning a blind eye to the many clear dangers and human rights violations that (the policy) would inflict on people seeking asylum.”

The British government argues the policy is in the public interest. It is seeking to distinguish between refugees who arrive by authorized routes, such as programs to help people fleeing Afghanistan or Ukraine, and those it says arrive by illegal means, including dangerous Channel crossings run by smugglers.

The government says it welcomes refugees who come to Britain by approved routes but wants to put criminal smuggling gangs out of business.

More than 28,000 migrants entered the U.K. across the Channel last year, up from 8,500 in 2020. Dozens have died, including 27 people in November when a single boat capsized.

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Follow all AP stories on global migration at https://apnews.com/hub/migration.

Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

by Canadian Press

UK judge nixes first legal challenge to Rwanda deportations

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