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LONDON – A plan by the British government to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda sparked another day of legal wrangling on Tuesday as a small number of them waited to be heard if they would board a jet to Africa later in the day .
Dozens of people who had arrived in the UK from France were originally supposed to be on the flight, which is expected to depart Tuesday night, although legal challenges are believed to have reduced that number to around seven.
Several of those cases were heard on Tuesday, raising the prospect that the passenger list could shrink further. But the government still says it wants the plane to take off, even with just a handful on board, despite the cost, estimated by the UK news media at up to £500,000 or about $600,000, and despite protests, including from church leaders .
As of Tuesday afternoon, the flight was still en route to leave the UK after the country’s Supreme Court refused to agree to a halt to deportations of asylum seekers before a full hearing of a case against the government next month. However, the government promised that if a future challenge were to prove successful, the plaintiff would be returned to the UK in this case.
Care4Calais, one of several groups involved in appealing the deportations this week, said all four of its clients would be on the plane Tuesday night after their cases were dismissed by the High Court.
Other groups were the Public and Commercial Services Union, which primarily represents government employees or contractors; and another aid group, Detention Action, which has also helped asylum seekers. Their appeals were intended to prevent individual asylum seekers from being forcibly deported before a full legal hearing on the policy takes place in July.
“We are in a situation where legality has yet to be verified,” said Mark Serwotka, the union’s general secretary. “If the government had any qualms about these people or any humaneness whatsoever, they would not deport anyone until a court had determined whether the process itself was legal.”
He added that it was now “quite possible” that deportees “would have to be returned” to Britain if their deportation was found to be illegal at the subsequent hearing in July.
Asked whether a largely empty flight would serve any purpose, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday he had predicted there would be “many legal challenges, there will be bumps in the road”. But he called the partnership with Rwanda sensible and claimed his opponents had no alternative to this policy.
According to Detention Action, the appeal of one of his clients, a Vietnamese national, was also dismissed. “We are deeply concerned for the safety and rights of our client – who first sought asylum in Ukraine,” then fled to the UK, it said in a statement. “He doesn’t speak English and the interior minister hasn’t promised that even a Vietnamese interpreter will help him with his asylum application.”
The arrival of a small but steady number of asylum seekers on boats from France was a growing political concern for Mr Johnson, who led the 2016 campaign for Brexit, arguing that it would allow the country to leave the European Union “Take back” control of your borders.
Relations with the French government are strained after Brexit. And, in limited cooperation with French authorities, Mr Johnson’s government has been looking at other ways to curb arrivals, which have become an embarrassing symbol of Britain’s failure to police its borders post-Brexit.
The British government announced in April that it had reached an agreement with Rwanda that would allow asylum seekers to be processed and settled in the African country. In return, Britain would pay Rwanda £120 million, or about $144 million, for economic development programs.
The deal has drawn fierce opposition in Britain for being unworkable and unethical, including from religious figures, officials and – according to the Times of London – Prince Charles, heir to the British throne.
Critics have accused Mr Johnson, who narrowly escaped a no-confidence vote last week, of deliberately raising the issue for political gain. They argue that even if very few asylum seekers are deported, the policy should send a signal to voters that Britain is cracking down on those trying to enter the country via the English Channel, many of them in small boats.
Liz Truss, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, told LBC radio that the flights should be seen in the larger context of illegal migration and the criminal gangs who make money bringing migrants into the UK.
The government, Ms Truss said, must ensure “that if they are not on today’s flight, they are on subsequent flights”. She added, “But fundamentally, we have to break the business model, and that’s why we have to take these actions.”
The Rwanda asylum plan debate comes as non-EU immigration to the UK continues to rise.
Government critics say Britain’s policy effectively criminalizes those trying to seek asylum and makes it impossible for most genuine refugees to legally enter the country.
Last year at least 27 people drowned trying to make the perilous journey across the English Channel, one of the world’s busiest shipping routes – and even that tragedy could no longer deter small boats from entering the UK.
In Rwanda, the deportation deal complements President Paul Kagame’s efforts to portray his country as a donor favorite, open to business and a partner in finding solutions to global migration. Mr. Kagame, 64, who came to power after the 1994 genocide, has emerged as a visionary bent on ending poverty, reducing corruption and raising the profile of women.
He has also dispatched Rwandan troops to keep the peace in troubled neighboring states and taken in African refugees who were facing brutal conditions in detention centers in Libya.
But Mr Kagame’s rule has been overshadowed by his government’s human rights record, which last year raised concerns even with the British government.
Civil society groups have accused Mr Kagame of cracking down on opposition figures, silencing the news media, and carrying out enforced disappearances and torture. Rwanda was also listed by Freedom House, a US-based nonprofit group, as one of the leading countries conducting “aggressive campaigns of transnational repression” alongside China, Turkey and Iran.
These included the sentencing of Paul Rusesabagina, the dissident whose actions during the genocide were portrayed in the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda. In a letter verified by the New York Times last month, the State Department declared Mr. Rusesabagina, a permanent resident of the United States, “wrongly detained” by Rwanda.
Given that, the deportation deal with Mr Johnson’s government risks legitimizing Mr Kagame’s authoritarian streak, said Evan Easton-Calabria, senior researcher at Tufts University’s Feinstein International Center.
The safety of asylum seekers in Rwanda is also a concern, she said, adding that refugees there have faced arrests, threats and killings in the past. There is also no guarantee that those who are taken to Kigali, the capital, will stay there rather than attempting to return to Europe via new routes. In the past, some of those who moved to Rwanda as part of an Israeli plan left the country.
“It’s a real risk to operate these flights,” said Dr. Easton-Calabria who has worked with refugees in Uganda. “The risk is that many people are left completely unassisted, completely traumatized in a country where they have no connections and do not speak the language.”
The deportations of migrants also come as Rwanda is locked in a diplomatic row with the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has accused Rwanda of supporting the M23 rebel group it is fighting.
Stephen Burg reported from London, and Abdi Latif Dahir from Nairobi, Kenya. Cora Engelbrecht contributed reporting from London.
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