Priti Patel’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as soon as next week is facing a legal challenge under emergency proceedings launched in the high court today, it has been confirmed.
It is the first legal challenge of the policy to have been officially put before the courts, and comes as Boris Johnson is under pressure from his own MPs to demonstrate a policy success.
With less than a week until the flight on 14 June, about 130 asylum seekers are expected to be flown one way to Rwanda and then encouraged to apply for asylum there.
A judicial review which claims that the home secretary’s policy is unlawful has been launched by the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), the charity Care4Calais and the pressure group Detention Action, along with four asylum seekers facing removal to the east African state.
The policy, which was unveiled by Johnson, will be challenged over Patel’s right to carry out such removals; the rationality of Patel’s claim that Rwanda is generally a “safe third country”; the adequacy of provision for malaria prevention in Rwanda; and whether it complies with the Human Rights Act.
It has been issued as a matter of urgency, following Patel’s scheduling of the first removal flight to Rwanda on 14 June. She has refused to give assurances that no removals to Rwanda would take place until the lawfulness of the Rwandan removals policy has been tested in court.
Another challenge, from the charity Freedom From Torture, is also expected within days. It is expected to question whether Rwanda is a safe third country; whether the policy breaches the European convention on human rights; and if removing asylum seekers to Rwanda is beyond Patel’s legal authority because it is contrary to the refugee convention.
According to reports in the Daily Mail about 80 asylum seekers who are currently detained after receiving notices of intent about Rwanda offshoring have lodged individual legal challenges against being put on the Rwanda flight next Tuesday.
The number crossing so far this year has passed the 10,000 mark. A record 28,526 made the crossing in 2021, compared with 8,466 the previous year, 1,843 in 2019 and 299 in 2018, according to official figures. The rise in the number of people crossing this year suggests that Rwanda offshoring has not deterred asylum seekers from travelling to the UK.
The Home Office appears to be targeting those who arrived in small boats in mid-May for offshoring.
Patel has argued that asylum seekers should claim asylum in the first safe country they arrive in.
But some of those the Guardian spoke to spent the whole of their journeys until they clambered into a dinghy in northern France, under the control of smugglers, often at knifepoint or gunpoint. They claim they were not in a position to claim asylum in countries they passed through and often did not even know which countries they had travelled through before reaching the UK.
Those who have been told they will be sent to Rwanda include a former senior Iranian police officer who fled to the UK after giving first-hand testimony of potential human rights violations by the Iranian government and some who claim they are unaccompanied 16-year-olds.
A Home Office source told the Daily Mail: “Specialist immigration lawyers are pulling every trick in the book and exploiting every possible loophole to get their clients off the flight.
“Every single person due to be relocated could and should have claimed asylum in a country they passed through, instead of coming to the UK illegally.”
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Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said the vast majority of the 100 or so people being detained pending their removal to Rwanda that lawyers have spoken to are “overwhelmed by total shock and despair”.
“Many came to the UK believing it to be a good place that would treat them more fairly than the places from which they escaped. “We say that the Rwanda plan is unlawful. We hope the courts will agree with us,” she said.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS union which represents the majority of Border Force staff, said: “It appears this government has learned nothing from the Windrush scandal, among others.
“PCS is not prepared to countenance our members being put in potentially dangerous and traumatic situations, where they may be asked to act illegally.”
