The British government’s immigration policy has suffered a severe setback after the ruling of a London appeals court, considering as “illegal” the deportation of hundreds of immigrants pending their asylum application to Rwanda.
The judicial ruling, one year after the European Court of Human Rights stopped the first plane with Kigali at the last moment, leaves the illegal Immigration Law currently in process in the air and throws the plans of the controversial Secretary of the Interior to the ground. Suella Braverman, who will appear in Parliament in the afternoon.
The appeals court, made up of judges Ian Burnett, Geoffrey Vos and Nicholas Underhill, refuted the conclusions reached by another high court last December, agreeing with the government and stipulating that the shipment to Rwanda was “legal”. immigrants arriving on British shores in small boats through the English Channel while their asylum claim was being processed.
Two of the three judges of the appeals court nevertheless considered that Rwanda “is not a safe third country” and that the deported immigrants “are at real risk of being sent back to their country of origin and suffering a real persecution and inhumane treatment”.
The ruling occurs a few days after the internal report that recognizes the high cost of sending immigrants to Rwanda, estimated at 169,000 pounds (195,000 euros) per person. The plan initially signed with the African country included the initial shipment of 1,000 immigrants, in contrast to the 50,000 provisionally housed in more than 400 hotels in the United Kingdom.