Government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda are lawful, High Court rules 

Government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda are lawful, the High Court has ruled. 

A panel of judges ruled the policy does not breach the Refugee Convention or Human Rights law.  

The news is a boost to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who said it would be her ‘dream’ to send a flight of Channel migrants to Rwanda outlined her ‘ultimate goal’ of cutting immigration into the UK to tens of thousands. 

The news is a boost to Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who said it would be her ‘dream’ to send a flight of Channel migrants to Rwanda

Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, reacted to the judgment by saying he was ‘very disappointed’. 

‘Treating people who are in search of safety like human cargo and shipping them off to another country is a cruel policy that will cause great human suffering,’ he said. 

‘The scheme is wrong in principle and unworkable in practice. The possibility of being sent off to Rwanda is causing huge distress to those we work with, including young people who are becoming extremely anxious and in some cases self-harming.

‘It is a hugely expensive policy that is unlikely to reach the scale claimed by the Government. The Home Office’s own evidence shows that deterrence measures such as this simply don’t work – they just force people to take ever more dangerous journeys.’