NEW YORK (AFP) – The UN refugee agency has accused Britain of dishonesty over London’s plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, as a court heard an emergency bid to block the first deportations next week.
The government intends to fly the first planeload of claimants to Rwanda on June 14, after agreeing the plan with Kigali in a bid to deter illegal migrants from undertaking perilous crossings of the Channel by boat.
Refugee rights groups and a trade union representing UK Border Force personnel are challenging the plan in London’s High Court, seeking an injunction against the flight on Tuesday and any beyond then.
They argue that the plan violates asylum seekers’ human rights, and say the government cannot justify its claim that Rwanda is a safe destination.
Lawyers for the claimants said that Home Secretary Priti Patel’s interior ministry had even claimed endorsement for the plan from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
But the UN agency’s lawyer Laura Dubinsky said it “in no way endorses the UK-Rwandan arrangement”.
“UNHCR is not involved in the UK-Rwanda arrangement, despite assertions to the contrary made by the secretary of state,” she told the court.
Dubinsky said the would-be refugees were at risk of “serious, irreparable harm” if sent to Rwanda, and that the UN had “serious concerns about Rwandan capacity”.
The UNHCR’s concerns include a lack of legal redress in Rwanda.