A victim of torture is still scheduled to be deported to Rwanda tomorrow despite the number of passengers being slimmed down by successful appeals, a barrister told the Court of Appeal today.
Raza Hussain QC, representing two people at risk of removal and three organisations challenging the policy, read out a Home Office communique to court which said that his client’s deportation should still go ahead because “Rwanda has a functioning healthcare system.”
“I have just received the news that his removal is going to be maintained… it appears that torture has been considered but the removal hasn’t been deferred,” he added.
The number of people on Tuesday’s flight has now been cut down to eight, according to campaign group Care4Calais.
The Home Office’s plan is facing two legal challenges today. The PCS union, which represents Border Force staff, is appealing a decision made on Friday for the flight to go ahead tomorrow. The charity Asylum Aid is also mounting another attempt to stop the flight.
Judges at the Court of Appeal heard today that the UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency, was concerned about “deficiencies” in Rwanda’s immigration process and warned the government not to pursue the plan.
Injunction sought against Rwanda flight to give more time to assess it’s legality in court
A charity is appealing to the High Court for an injunction on the Home Office’s deportation flight to Rwanda so that more time can be given for the asylum seekers to access justice.
Barrister Charlotte Kilroy QC, who led the charity Asylum Aid’s legal team, asked Mr Justice Swift to impose an “urgent interim” injunction – to give time for the charity’s claim to be fully argued.
“The claimant is applying for an urgent interim order that the defendant be prohibited from enforcing the removal of any asylum-seeker to Rwanda pursuant to ‘safe third country’ decisions taken under the new arrangements the defendant has adopted … pending the outcome of this claim,” she said in a written case outline.
Ms Kilroy added: “Without interim relief there is … a real risk that individuals will be unlawfully removed to Rwanda without access to court and may suffer irreparable damage as a result.
“Given the nature of the decisions taken, in a context where only the highest standards of fairness will suffice and fundamental rights … are in issue, the Claimant submits that the balance of convenience lies strongly in favour of the grant of the interim relief it seeks.”
Demonstration planned outside the Home Office at 5:30pm
Protesters are expected to gather outside the Home Office at 5pm today to call on the government to halt their deportation flight to Rwanda.
Ali Jones, an organiser of the demonstration from SOAS Detainee Support, said: “Immigration detention and deportations are always cruel and unjust, but forcibly and permanently deporting people to a country they have never been to – away from their families and communities – is plain torturous.”
Zrinka Bralo, chief executive director of Migrants Organise, said: “We have had enough. The Rwanda sham is the latest cruel expansion of Britain’s Hostile Environment immigration system.”
‘Errors’ in Home Office letters to asylum seekers ‘mischaracterised’ the UN’s role in Rwanda
Errors made by the Home Office in letters to asylum seekers “mischaracterised” the UN refugee agency’s role in Rwanda, lawyers have told the Court of Appeal.
Raza Husain QC told the court that UNHCR’s position had been “erroneously understood” by the government.
With regards to claims that UNHCR can oversee Rwanda’s asylum process, the secretary of state Priti Patel had said: “The UNHCR is closely involved with the NEDP, and will provide oversight of individuals relocated from the UK.”
However Mr Husain said “well with great respect, no they won’t”.
He told the court that this has now been accepted as incorrect and the Home Office have issued an apology. The Home Office said “this was an error of a misreading of the [UN] report”.
Mr Husain added that the UNHCR’s own evidence said that they could not “monitor the quality of decision making” of the Rwandan authorities.
“Over the past years UNHCR has not been permitted to observe the refugee status determination committee and information on the asylum case is not shared systematically by the UNHCR by the Rwandan authorities” they said.
Campaigners ‘hopeful’ flight will be scrapped – as passenger numbers cut to eight
Care4Calais saying they are “very hopeful” that the Rwanda flight will have to be cancelled through a series of individual challenges.
The campaign group told The Independent that only eight people were still on flight list after more successful challenges.
Activists are hoping to get a lawyer for the last person without legal representation this afternoon.
Care4Calais founder Claire Mosely said: “We’ll have to fight every single case individually. We’re very hopeful all of them will be removed from the flight list by tomorrow.”
She added: “We don’t want the Home Office to be able to deport anyone to Rwanda until the full court case in July – how can they deport people before it’s been determined if the policy is unlawful?”
Two more Rwanda flight passengers have their tickets cancelled
Two more people who were scheduled to be on the deportation flight to Rwanda have had their tickets cancelled, according to campaign group Care4Calais.
They shared the news on Twitter, saying: “Two more Rwanda deportees have had their tickets cancelled. Twenty three people have now had their Rwanda tickets cancelled. Eight still have live tickets for tomorrow.”
Second challenge to Home Office Rwanda deportation begins
A charity has begun another legal challenge to a Government plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Asylum Aid have asked a High Court judge to temporarily block ministers from enforcing the removal of “any asylum seeker” to Rwanda.
Lawyers for the charity argued the procedure adopted by the Government was unfair.
Mr Justice Swift is considering the challenge at a High Court hearing in London.
Lawyers representing Home Secretary Priti Patel say Asylum Aid’s application should be dismissed.
Number of passengers on Rwanda flight ‘cut down to 10′
The number of people scheduled to be on the flight to Rwanda tomorrow has been cut down to 10, according to campaign group Care4Calais.
They tweeted the news saying: “Another Rwanda deportee has had his ticket cancelled. Twenty-one people have now had their Rwanda tickets cancelled, but ten still have live tickets for tomorrow. “
Torture victim recalls ‘shock’ of finding out he could be sent to Rwanda
A young Sudanese man has spoken to campaign group Care4Calais about the shock he felt when he found out he is scheduled to be sent to Rwanda.
“They showed me the letter saying I would be sent to Rwanda. I felt.. it’s just total shock,” he said.
He had travelled to the UK from Calais and said he was there “for 9 months trying to get on lorries.”
“People were talking about Rwanda [in Calais],” he said, “but I never thought it would be true, and you know as we don’t have TV there, and I wasn’t really familiar with the internet, we don’t really have proper news.”
The 23-year-old spoke about how he had to run away from Sudan as a teenager after he fell in love with a girl and got her pregnant to the anger of her family.
As she was from a different tribe, which was seen as higher to his, her family were outraged at what had happened and “came after me to attack me,” he said.
He moved from Sudan to Chad and then to Libya. “I was seized and held three months by a militia, being beaten and tortured with electricity and fire, morning to night,” he said.
“It left marks all over my body. They demanded that my family send money, but I told them, my family didn’t have that sort of money. So instead they just made me work for them.”
Eventually he managed to escape and to cross in a boat to Malta. After nine months in detention in Malta, he got in a lorry to Genoa, and then on to Marseille and then to Calais.
Speaking about potentially being sent to Rwanda, he said: “My feeling is shock that after all the time I had spent travelling, just hoping to find somewhere safe I could have a normal life, and thinking I would find a safe place, that they would just send me back again.”
Rwanda flight challenges are just ‘teething problems’, says Johnson
Boris Johnson has said that his government’s policy to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is experiencing “teething problems”.
Mr Johnson was responding to questions to a number of legal challenges to stop the Home Office’s deportation flight to Rwanda tomorrow.
He said: “When we announced the policy, I always said that it would begin with a lot of teething problems and you have a lot of legal action against it. And they will try and delay it, that’s inevitable.”
He added: “What we’re trying to do is stop the business model of criminal gangs who are preying on people, moving them across the Channel in unseaworthy vessels, risking their lives and sometimes costing their lives. But it’s worse than that, what they’re doing is undermining people’s confidence in legal migration and people’s support for legal migration.”
The first challenge to the Home Office’s Rwanda flight has been heard in the Court of Appeal and a judgement is expected at around 3:30pm today.
The second challenge, brought by charity Asylum Aid, is due to be heard later this afternoon.
