Home Office tells second group of migrants they will be flown to Rwanda – after first deportation flights were delayed due to legal challenges

  • The first deportation flights are now not expected to depart until after June 6 
  • Care4Calais and Detention Action sent the government legal letters this week 
  • Boris Johnson said last week that 50 migrants were told they’re going to Rwanda 

The Home Office has told a second group of migrants that they will be shipped to Rwanda as part of the government’s controversial new immigration policy. 

Hotels and facilities are being prepared for the migrants in the capital of Kigali, where Home Secretary Priti Patel hopes to send the first batch within weeks. 

Under the scheme, for which Kigali is set to be paid £120 million, migrants arriving on small boats across the English channel from France will immediately be transferred to Rwanda, where their paperwork will be processed. 

But ongoing legal challenges from charities and a civil service union risk delaying the policy’s rollout for weeks or even months. 

In legal letters sent this week, the rights groups claimed the policy breaches the refugee convention and human rights law, leading the government to delay the first deportation flights until after June 6.  

Care4Calais and Detention Action are the charities making legal claims against the policy, as is the Public and Commercial Services union. 

They are also thought to be preparing legal claims for individual migrants. 

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said last weekend that 50 asylum seekers have already been told they are due to be flown to the East African nation within a fortnight, which would be the end of May, but anticipated opposition to the move.

Campaigners said they received notice on Wednesday evening that the Rwanda flights will now not take place until at least June 6.

Hotels and facilities are being prepared for the migrants in the capital of Kigali, where Home Secretary Priti Patel (pictured) hopes to send the first batch of migrants within weeks

Care4Calais and Detention Action are the charities making legal claims against the policy, as is the Public and Commercial Services union. (Pictured: Migrants arriving at Dover on May 17)

A general view shows the Desir Resort Hotel, which is being prepared to host asylum seekers sent to Rwanda from Britain, in Kigali, Rwanda 

It comes as an inquiry is launched into the handling of the deal amid accusations of Parliament being bypassed.

Meanwhile, Ms Patel and Rwandan foreign minister Vincent Biruta travelled to Geneva on Thursday for meetings with the UN’s refugee agency the UNHCR and other bodies.

Clare Moseley, founder of refugee charity Care4Calais, said she was ‘relieved’ at the decision on the flights.

She said: ‘This was a direct response to our second letter sent on Tuesday as part of our legal action against the Rwanda plan.

‘Up until last night (the Government) had been indicating that flights could take place next week.’

Ms Patel said on Wednesday that work was taking place ‘right now’ to roll out the deportation policy as part of plans to curb Channel crossings, and discussed progress on the agreement in a meeting with Mr Biruta.

The Home Secretary said she was ‘pushing ahead with delivering this world-leading plan which epitomises the kind of international approach that is required to tackle an international challenge like the migration crisis’.

Since the start of this year, 8,697 people have reached the UK after navigating busy shipping lanes from France in small boats, according to analysis of Government data by the PA news agency.

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab has said that sending refugees to Rwanda will cut down on people-smuggling gangs.

Asked when the first deportation flights to Rwanda will take place, Mr Raab told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it would happen ‘as soon as possible’.

‘Well, that’s for the Home Secretary to work through in terms of the operational considerations, but as soon as possible,’ he said.

‘And the reason we’re doing as you know, is to stem the pull factor, the trade in misery with the criminal gangs preying on people who are either fleeing persecution or who are trying to come to a better life for economic reasons in this country. And we want to encourage people to use the legal routes.

‘I think we’ve shown whether it’s Hong Kong, Afghanistan or Ukraine, the big-hearted welcome that we will show those fleeing persecution, but what you don’t want to do is have a frankly, criminal gangs pursuing criminal routes.

‘And so the the Rwanda policy is one element of all of the stuff we’re doing and that the Home Secretary is working on, and we’ll get it up and running as soon as possible.’

Crossings resumed on Thursday, amid bad weather at sea, after none were recorded on Wednesday.

But campaigners including Care4Calais say they have ‘serious concerns’ about the policy and plan to bring a judicial review.

Ms Moseley said they are still working to get hold of Channel migrants detained in Home Office facilities awaiting deportation.

She said: ‘So far we have found six of these people and their stories are heartbreaking, people who have escaped from cruel horrors in their home countries and suffered forced labour, torture and exploitation on long journeys to reach safety here.

‘Yet now they are facing a terrifying ordeal of further deportation across the globe to a country where they will never feel safe.’

It comes after a trainee engineer from Sudan, who is among the Channel migrants bound for Rwanda if and when flights commence, said he would rather kill himself in detention than be sent away.

He said: ‘I will kill myself before I get deported, if the UK as a government and a country cannot uphold human rights, who will?’

According to the Home Office, Mr Biruta and Ms Patel met representatives including the high commissioner for refugees and the deputy high commissioner for human rights.

The department said the pair reinforced their ‘commitment to working in collaboration with UN agencies’ on the deportation plan and ’emphasised’ that claims will be processed in accordance with the UN Refugee Convention.

Mr Biruta said: ‘While the UNHCR are entitled to their views on this partnership, they have no reason to doubt our motivations or our ability to offer sanctuary and opportunity to those seeking it – as we already are doing so for 130,000 refugees.

‘We welcome the opportunity to discuss this partnership with colleagues in the UNHCR to address their concerns and advance their understanding of what we’re proposing.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘Our new, world-leading migration partnership with Rwanda will see those who make dangerous, illegal or unnecessary journeys to the UK relocated to Rwanda and, if recognised as refugees, they will be supported to build a new life there.

‘We are putting this plan into action and have started to notify those who are in scope to be relocated, with the first flights expected to take place in the coming months.’

It comes as an inquiry is being launched into the handling of the policy. 

Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, who chairs the International Agreements Committee, lamented how the deal had not been debated or approved by Parliament before it was signed.

A Sudanese asylum seeker among the first destined for Rwanda said he is prepared to kill himself rather than be sent to the east African nation. Pictured, A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent on May 9

Ali said he arrived in the UK by boat on May 9, along with around a dozen other Sudanese migrants. File image from May 9 of people thought to be migrants arriving in Cover, Kent

The House of Lords heard this was because the type of deal, known as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), is not legally binding.

However, peers argued that MoUs should not be used as a way around parliamentary scrutiny.

Labour’s Lady Hayter told the Lords: ‘Perhaps more importantly and certainly more urgently is the issue of deals being signed by way of Memoranda of Understanding rather than by treaty.

‘This means they do not even have to be disclosed to Parliament, let alone laid and debated here.

‘I raised this in a private notice question on April 25 in regard to the Rwanda deal – deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.

‘That was done by MoU without any debate or approval by Parliament.

‘And I can tell the House that just today, this morning, the committee has launched an inquiry on this and we will have a call for evidence on the MoU on our website shortly.’

The Government’s deal with Rwanda has been subject to much criticism, with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) urging both countries to reconsider the arrangement.

The number of migrants who have come to the UK on small boats is significantly higher than what it was at this point last year

A record 28,395 migrants reached the UK illegally last year in small boats over the Channel, a 200 per cent increase on 2020

Labour peer Viscount Stansgate, the son of the late left-wing firebrand Tony Benn, argued the Rwanda asylum deal was a major political policy development, but the upper chamber ‘could exercise no scrutiny except to ask a few supplementary questions’.

‘That is not good enough,’ he said.

He added: ‘I do think that there is a risk that if governments continue to find ways to evade proper parliamentary scrutiny then we are going to get into trouble.

‘I hope in future years a future government will make the proper provisions that are necessary.

‘If we are going to be a meaningful democracy then this House has to play its full part in it.’

Meanwhile, Lady Hayter argued that bypassing Parliament with the use of Memoranda of Understanding ‘flies in the face’ of the Ponsonby rule, a 1924 convention whereby significant international agreements are brought before Parliament.

Foreign Office minister Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park said the MoU with Rwanda built upon wider collaboration with the country, including on climate change and more effective aid delivery.

He said: ‘A non-legally binding arrangement in the form of an MoU is, the Government believes, the most effective vehicle as it allows the partnership to change and the technical details to be adjusted quickly if required and with the agreement of both partners.’

Intervening, Liberal Democrat Lord Purvis of Tweed said the Home Secretary and her ministerial colleague in the Lords needed ‘to correct the record’.

He said: ‘They have actively misled Parliament by saying these are binding obligations.

‘He has now absolutely contradicted what Priti Patel told the House of Commons and what Baroness Williams told this chamber. Both cannot be correct.’

Lord Goldsmith said he was not aware an error had been made and pointed out an MoU on international migration was not uncommon.

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