A UK court has ruled a plan to deport migrants to Rwanda illegal

UK Court of Appeal declared this Wednesday illegal the government’s plan to deport migrants to Rwanda, as he believes that implementing this initiative — approved during Boris Johnson’s Downing Street stage and questioned by human rights organizations and the UN — would first require changes to Britain’s asylum system.

The system was approved by the High Court in December, but an appeal brought by activists and asylum seekers finally concluded in a symbolic defeat of one of London’s flagship immigration plans, reports BBC. The current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has defended the deportations to Rwanda as a way of discouraging crossing into the English Channel.

The government announced an agreement with Rwanda in April 2022, and the first flight was scheduled to take off in June of the same year. but it was canceled at the last minute after the intervention of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Then began a thorny internal judicial process in which the various variables of these transfers were examined, also due to the possible lack of protection of the affected migrants.

Sunak has promised to reduce the number of migrations, with the aim of “stopping the boats” coming to the south of the UK from France. He also announced changes in speed up expulsions and deploying ferries to temporarily house those crossing the English Channel.

This route has claimed more than 200 lives since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), which recorded two deaths since the beginning of 2023.