Britain plans to start deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda on July 24, a government lawyer said on Monday, although the controversial scheme depends on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party winning the next election.
Sending asylum seekers who arrived in the UK without permission to Rwanda is one of Sunak's main policies, but legal and parliamentary obstacles have meant it has not come to fruition so far.
Sunak said the deportation flights would not leave before the July 4 election, but promised that if he wins they would begin soon after. The Labor Party, which leads by around 20 points in opinion polls, has promised to scrap the plan if it comes to power.
In documents lodged with London's High Court in response to a challenge from the charity Asylum Aid, government lawyers said the intention is to “effect removals with a flight to Rwanda on 23 July 2024 (and no earlier)”.
However, government lawyer Edward Brown later told the court that an “operational update” from the Home Office said the first flight will in fact depart on July 24.
The scheme — first devised by one of Sunak's predecessors, Boris Johnson, in 2022 — aims to stop asylum seekers making the dangerous Channel crossing in small boats from France.
In November last year, the UK Supreme Court declared the policy illegal, prompting Sunak to sign a new treaty with the East African country and pass new legislation to overturn the previous proposal.
The number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel has risen to record numbers this year, with more than 10,000 people arriving in the country so far, after numbers fell by a third in 2023.
Source: CNN Brasil
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