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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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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Continue reading...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.
Continue reading...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”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: sources say most have hosts ready under Homes for Ukraine scheme but have heard nothing
More than 500 Ukrainian children who fled the war without their parents are stuck waiting in limbo across Europe after applying to the Homes for Ukraine scheme, sources working closely with the Home Office say.
Most are teenagers who thought they would be eligible and have British families waiting to host them, but have heard nothing from the Home Office.
Continue reading...After an error on a visa application form, Sarah slipped into immigration limbo
Six years ago, when she was 24, Sarah received an unexpected letter from the Home Office telling her she faced arrest and removal from the UK within seven days. She was so terrified that she climbed out of the back window of the house where she was living, taking her seven-year-old son with her, and they became homeless.
Sarah, who asked for her real name not to be published, had been in the UK since she arrived in 1994 as a two-year-old refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She had attended primary and secondary school in the UK and was working and paying taxes in London, but her uncertain immigration status had not been resolved when she was a child. As an adult she was required every three years to pay fees of about £1,000 to apply for visas that would allow her to remain. An error on her 2016 application form meant the visa was refused, but the fees were not refunded and she could not afford to reapply, and she slipped into immigration limbo. Even now, 28 years after arriving in the UK, she is still battling to get British citizenship.
Continue reading...Pre-action letter questions Home Office claims that east African country is ‘generally safe’
Priti Patel’s plan to send refugees on a one-way ticket to Rwanda is being legally challenged over the government’s alleged failure to identify risks facing vulnerable groups such as LGBTQ+ people.
A pre-action letter sent to the Home Office on behalf of the pressure group Freedom from Torture questions government claims that the east African state is “generally a safe country” for refugees.
The government’s claim that Rwanda is “generally” a “safe third country” is irrational.
It relies upon apparent pre-determination or bias.
The home secretary has breached her duty not to induce breaches of the European convention on human rights by her agents.
Removing asylum seekers to Rwanda is beyond Patel’s legal authority because it is contrary to the refugee convention.
Continue reading...Grenfell United criticises Home Office papers outlining reason for retaining policy against inquiry recommendations
Bereaved relatives of the Grenfell Tower blaze have said they are “enraged” by government plans to keep the controversial “stay put” policy instead of adopting an inquiry recommendation.
Grenfell United has criticised new Home Office papers which outline its reasons for retaining the policy – meaning that residents of most buildings should wait for rescue services rather than leaving in the event of a fire.
Continue reading...Mohammed is among first asylum seekers to face removal under Home Office’s controversial scheme
It took Mohammed more than three years and a journey of more than 5,000 miles to reach the UK after fleeing a massacre in his village in Sudan.
Now, just over a week after arriving by kayak across the Channel, he is among the first tranche of asylum seekers facing forced removal to Rwanda, on the continent where his journey began.
Continue reading...High court to hear claims that judges ‘in a very precarious position’ hiding from Taliban have faced long delays
Alleged inconsistencies in the way the UK Home Office and Foreign Office process asylum applications from vulnerable judges in hiding in Afghanistan are being challenged at the high court on Tuesday.
If successful, the three separate judicial reviews will require the Home Office to undertake a wholesale rethink of how it is handling cases. The reviews – anonymised to protect the claimants from persecution by the Taliban – cover a male judge and a female judge who have had their applications for asylum rejected, and a prominent female women’s rights activist.
Continue reading...Home Office plans have been described as a power grab by chief constables and crime commissioners
The home secretary faces fresh criticism over plans described by chief constables and police and crime commissioners (PCCs) as a “power grab”.
It comes as the Guardian publishes private documents at the centre of an extraordinary row between Priti Patel and police leaders.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Comments raise concerns UK will find it difficult to refuse requests from Kigali on sensitive issues
Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has suggested the UK extradite suspects wanted in the east African country for alleged roles in the 1994 genocide, after a controversial deal with the Home Office to process asylum seekers there.
Speaking less than two weeks after the deal was announced, Kagame told an audience of diplomats in Kigali that included the British high commissioner he hoped “that when the UK is sending us these migrants, they should send us some people they have accommodated for over 15 years who committed crimes [in Rwanda]”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: chief constables and commissioners criticise plans to make it easier for home secretary to intervene
Police leaders have accused Priti Patel of a “power grab” that would allow the home secretary to intervene in local law enforcement matters and silence chiefs who want to speak out on issues deemed politically sensitive.
An extraordinary row has broken out behind the scenes, with police bosses accusing Patel of trying to obtain new powers without parliamentary approval.
Continue reading...