Category Archives: Immigration and asylum

‘Please stop the plane’: asylum seekers plead before Rwanda deportation flight

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‘Mentally exhausted’ expected deportees launched last-minute legal bids to avoid removal from UK

An Albanian asylum seeker and suspected victim of trafficking has told the Guardian he is in a “very bad mental state” as he expects to board a deportation flight to Rwanda, a country of which he knows “nothing”.

The 26-year-old Albanian man is one of seven asylum seekers who have launched last-minute legal challenges to avoid being forcibly flown to the east African country. Others include three Iranians, one Iraqi and one Vietnamese asylum seeker. All arrived in the UK on small boats in the middle of May.

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First UK deportation flight to Rwanda cancelled after European court intervention – UK politics live

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Final remaining asylum seekers understood to have been taken off the flight following legal intervention

You can watch the Sturgeon press conference here.

Sturgeon is now taking questions.

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UN refugee chief accuses Truss of ‘untrue’ statements on Rwanda policy

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Filippo Grandi says foreign secretary is wrong to claim critics had not offered alternatives

Liz Truss has been accused by the UN’s refugee chief of making “untrue” statements after claiming that critics of the UK government’s Rwandan removals policy have failed to come up with alternative policies.

Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said the foreign secretary was wrong because the UN had offered “many, many suggestions” instead of sending people to the east African state, which he said “violates the fundamental principles of refugees”.

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Appeal court rejects last-ditch legal bid to block flight taking asylum seekers to Rwanda – live

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Court of appeal judges have rejected a last-ditch legal bid to block a flight due to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda on Tuesday

Q: Your Northern Ireland protocol plan is holed below the water line because it has so much opposition in your party, isn’t it?

Johnson says the government needs to resolve the problems with the protocol.

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Rwanda deportation flight at risk despite loss of two late appeals

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Home Office source says individual legal cases mean too few people may be able to board plane anyway

Two last-ditch legal challenges that attempted to halt the inaugural flight carrying asylum seekers to Rwanda have been rejected by judges.

The court of appeal upheld a previous decision to reject an injunction blocking the first flight, which was due to take off for the east African state on Tuesday.

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Children deemed adults by Home Office could be deported to Rwanda

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Children’s and refugees charities raise concerns after detention of three children misjudged as adults in offshoring programme

Concerns are mounting that children wrongly assessed as adults by the Home Office could end up being offshored to Rwanda.

The Guardian understands that three age-disputed children who the Home Office declared to be adults and detained in preparation for offshoring to Rwanda have now been released. It is understood that concerns have been raised about whether at least three more detainees threatened with removal to the east African country are children rather than adults.

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Unions call for delay to Rwanda policy until legal position fully tested

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Appeal against plan to remove asylum seekers who arrive in the UK via unofficial routes due to take place on Monday

Protests have taken place before a possible first flight removing asylum seekers to Rwanda, as unions said that officials should not be asked to take part in a policy that may subsequently be declared illegal.

With the first flight in the deportation scheme scheduled to take place on Tuesday evening, activists also promised to target the Spanish charter airline understood to be providing the aircraft.

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200 protesters block immigration officers’ van during Peckham arrest

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Met police called to help enforcement officers get past crowd of demonstrators after Nigerian man detained for overstaying visa

A man arrested for immigration offences was released on bail after protesters gathered in south-east London on Saturday for hours to block a van he was being transported in from leaving.

Video footage posted on Twitter showed a crowd of about 200 people sitting on the ground in front of the vehicle in Peckham while another clip showed members of the public standing and shouting “let him go”.

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UK deportation flight to Rwanda can go ahead, high court judge rules

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Judge refuses to grant interim relief after lawyers for asylum seekers argued policy was unlawful

A high court judge has ruled that a controversial deportation flight to Rwanda that was due to take off early next week can go ahead.

Mr Justice Swift refused to grant interim relief – urgent action in response to an injunction application made by several asylum seekers facing offshoring to Rwanda.

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Home Office misled refugees about UN involvement in Rwanda plans, court told

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Letters to asylum seekers assured them UNHCR was ‘closely involved’ in deportation scheme, high court hears

The United Nations refugee agency has made a dramatic intervention to try to halt Priti Patel’s plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.

In a late submission of evidence, the UNHCR claimed the home secretary misled refugees over the organisation’s support for the plan. The agency has also said the scheme failed to meet the required standards of “legality and appropriateness” for transferring asylum seekers from one country to another.

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Home Office tried to ‘sanitise’ staff education module on colonialism

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Disagreements have led to delay in course rollout as civil servants think empire material ‘too controversial’

Civil servants have attempted to “sanitise” a Home Office teaching module on race, empire and colonialism, according to those involved in devising a mandatory course on British history for the department’s 36,000 employees.

Disagreements have led to a year-long delay in the rollout of the project, which was due to be launched in June 2021. Home Office civil servants are understood to be nervous that some of the proposed material addressing issues of race, colonialism and empire is “too controversial” and have urged academics to tone down some of the content.

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Home Office’s Rwanda deportation plans face high court challenge

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About 30 asylum seekers expected to be sent to Rwanda on 14 June

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 on Wednesday.

An application for a judicial review claims that the home secretary’s policy is unlawful. Claimants are also seeking an injunction that will attempt to stop the plane from taking off.

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Home Office offers asylum seekers choice between war zones they fled and Rwanda

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High number of first 100 people to be sent to Rwanda are from Sudan, despite being small number of those crossing the Channel

The Home Office is offering to fly asylum seekers back to the conflict zones they escaped from if they do not wish to be sent to Rwanda, the Guardian has learned.

Documents issued to the first group of asylum seekers facing removal to the east African country state that the Home Office voluntary returns service can help them go back to their home country.

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Number of people to reach UK in small boats in 2022 nears 10,000

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People continuing to cross Channel to reach UK, figures show, with a vessel of 40 brought ashore on Friday

Nearly 10,000 people have arrived in the UK on small boats from across the Channel so far this year, according to new government figures.

A total of 9,988 have reached the UK after leaving the French coast in vessels such as dinghies since New Year’s Day.

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Afghans with western links among rising number trying to cross Channel

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Fivefold increase in refugees from Afghanistan crossing in small boats this year as they flee Taliban

Refugees who worked alongside international organisations in Afghanistan are among a rising number of Afghan asylum seekers in camps in northern France planning to cross the Channel in small boats.

The number of asylum seekers from Afghanistan crossing the Channel in small boats has risen fivefold this year, according to immigration figures released last week, as more refugees flee in the wake of the Taliban takeover.

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UK agrees to launch full inquiry into drowning of 27 people in Channel

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Lawyers for bereaved relatives say ‘serious failings’ in rescue operation may have contributed to deaths

The government has agreed to launch a full investigation into the drowning of at least 27 people trying to cross the Channel in a small boat last November.

The decision by the transport secretary, Grant Shapps, to agree to what is known as an article 2 inquiry – an independent investigation – is revealed in correspondence between his lawyers and eight relatives of 11 of the victims.

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First Rwanda deportation flight to leave UK on 14 June, says Priti Patel

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Group of asylum seekers sent formal notices advising they will be relocated to east African country, say officials

The first deportation flight to Rwanda carrying people who arrived in the UK without authorisation is scheduled to leave on 14 June, Priti Patel has announced.

A group of asylum seekers has been sent formal notices by the Home Office advising they will be relocated to the east African country, officials have said.

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Home Office cancels flight to deport Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq

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Campaigners against flight say Kurdish Iraqis had endured ‘unnecessary torture in pursuit of headlines’

The Home Office has cancelled a chartered deportation flight to Iraq that was due to depart from the UK on Tuesday evening.

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers were facing deportation to northern Iraq in the first flight of its kind for a decade.

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UK about to deport up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers to Iraq despite dangers

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Foreign Office warns against all travel to the country where Islamic State is still a threat

Up to 30 Kurdish asylum seekers are facing deportation to Iraq in the first Home Office flight of its kind for a decade.

Iraq is deemed to be so dangerous that the Foreign Office warns against all travel there, warning of “a high threat of kidnapping throughout the country including from both Daesh [Islamic State] and other terrorist and militia groups”.

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Visa scheme for graduates from top 50 non-UK universities is launched

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‘High potential individual’ route will allow eligible individuals to come to Britain without a prior job offer

Graduates from the world’s top 50 non-UK universities can apply to come to Britain through a new visa scheme.

Ministers hope the “high potential individual” route, which launches on Monday, will attract the “brightest and best” at the beginning of their careers to work in the UK.

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