Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled on Thursday that the deportation to Rwanda of asylum-seekers arriving by boat across the English Channel was unlawful.
Under a preliminary £140m ($177m) deal struck last year, Britain planned to send tens of thousands of asylum seekers arriving on its shores on a journey of more than 6,400km to the east African country.
Today, the Court of Appeal voted by a two-to-one majority against the decision to deport the asylum seekers.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the British government would seek to appeal the court’s decision.
“I respect the court, but I fundamentally disagree with its decision. Rwanda is a safe country,” he said in a statement. “We will now seek permission to appeal this decision to the Supreme Court.”
And the European Court of Human Rights issued a last-minute decision blocking the first planned trip to deport asylum-seekers last year, and the court ordered to prevent the deportation of any asylum-seeker until the end of the judicial procedures in Britain.
Last December, the High Court in London ruled the legality of the deportation policy, but a number of asylum seekers from several countries and human rights organizations challenged the decision.
Even if the Court of Appeal’s decision was in favor of the government, it was unlikely that the deportation flights would begin this year.
Last year, a record 45,755 asylum seekers arrived in Britain in small boats across the English Channel, most of them from France. It has reached 11,000 since the beginning of this year so far, at a rate similar to the first half of 2022.
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