Dana Malcolm
Staff Writer
November 24, 2023 – There will be no deportation of illegal immigrants from the UK to Rwanda following a Supreme Court decision that the plan was unlawful.
Handed down on November 15 the judgment ended a 19-month fight to get the plan approved after its unveiling in April 2022. It followed a three-day case that went to the Supreme Court after the deal was struck down in the appeals court.
Human rights groups had fought the plan, which aimed to send any migrant who could not be returned to their home country to the African nation, since its inception. An eleventh-hour injunction from the European Court of Human Rights stopped the first-ever flight from leaving the UK in June 2022.
One significant argument from human rights groups against the plan was that Rwanda had a history of human rights concerns. Concerns which the UK themselves had highlighted years prior.
The UK had repeatedly tried to assure that Rwanda was now safe but the Supreme Court deemed otherwise.
The deal should have lasted five years and the Associated Press reports the failed plan cost the UK over $175 million in losses.
Had it been allowed to move forward the plan would have applied to ‘all categories of people who pass through safe countries and make illegal and dangerous journeys to the UK.’
The plan had been decried by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Anglican Church, and other high-profile groups.
