Rights group files case against UK immigration policy

Human rights group Asylum Aid said on Friday that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has taken legal action against the British government’s policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda in the next few weeks.

Parliament passed legislation last month to pave the way for the UK to send asylum seekers arriving illegally to Rwanda, which Sunak says will prevent migrants from making the perilous crossing to the UK in small boats.

The new law, which says the British parliament has declared Rwanda a safe country, is designed to overturn a Supreme Court ruling last year that found the program illegal.

But a document released by the government this week, which said social workers must consider Rwanda safe, contradicts the text of the new law, which allows asylum seekers the right to appeal in restricted situations.

“We took this legal action to ensure that the Home Office (the main government department responsible for immigration) properly considers any individual case against removal to Rwanda on the basis that they will be returned to the place they fled from Rwanda.” said Alison Pickup, executive director of Asylum Aid.

Sunak, who has made the program one of his key policies, expects the first flights to take off in 10 to 12 weeks. He says the plan will crush the business model of smugglers who take tens of thousands of refugees across the English Channel in small boats.