The British government was yesterday due to send a first plane of failed asylum seekers to Rwanda, despite last-ditch legal bids to block the deportations, mounting protests and criticism from the UN.
A chartered plane was set to leave one of London’s airports overnight and land in Kigali today, campaigners said, after British judges on Monday rejected an appeal against the deportations.
Claimants had argued that a decision on the policy should have waited until a full court hearing on the legality of the policy next month.
Thirty-one migrants were due to be sent, but one of the claimants, the non-governmental organization Care4Calais, wrote on Twitter that the tickets of 23 of them had been canceled.
Those due to be deported include Albanians, Iraqis, Iranians and a Syrian, Care4Calais said.
Other claimants included the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), whose members would have to implement the removals, and immigration support group Detention Action.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka has said it would be “an appalling situation” if yesterday’s removals were subsequently found to be illegal at the full hearing next month.
British Home Secretary Priti Patel should wait until then if she “had any respect, not just for the desperate people who come to this country, but for the workers she employs,” Serwotka told Sky News.
Protesters gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice and the Home Office on Monday.
In Geneva, Switzerland, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi denounced the British government policy as “all wrong” and said it should not be “exporting its responsibility to another country.”
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