HOME OFFICE SENDS ‘THIRD COUNTRY’ REMOVAL NOTICES TO DOZENS OF BRITISH ASYLUM SEEKERS

Dozens of migrants in Britain’s asylum system have received notification from the Home Office over the past fortnight warning them of possible removal to a “safe third country” as the government pushes to get its contentious Rwanda plan off the ground.

Migrants — most of whom have been in the asylum system for months or even years — were warned in the documents, copies of which were seen by the Financial Times, that if their claim was deemed “inadmissible”, immigration officers may “consider whether there are any other safe third countries where you would be safe and which agree to admit you”.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has made “stopping the boats” — a reference to the crossing of the English Channel by migrants — one of his top pre-election pledges. The plan to remove some migrants to Rwanda is the centrepiece of his plan as ministers believe it would act as a big deterrent.

But the scheme has faced numerous setbacks. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled the plan was unlawful because Rwanda could not be deemed a safe country.

The government responded by signing a new, legally binding treaty with Kigali and by drafting a bill — currently making its way through parliament — that deems Rwanda a safe country and disapplies sections of human rights law.

Lawyers whose clients have received the documents believe the Home Office is rescinding existing “notices of intent to remove” because they were issued when the Supreme Court had ruled that the country was not safe. 

The Home Office was providing new “notices of intent” setting out the possibility of removal to a safe, unnamed third country to ensure the plan was legally watertight, they said.

Although the new legal notices do not mention Rwanda, a covering letter states the government has “withdrawn” a previous notice issued to the individual in question that stated that they may be removed to the African nation.

It continues: “In light of the Supreme Court judgment of 15 November 2023 which found that removal of asylum seekers to Rwanda was, based on the evidence available in Summer 2022, unlawful, we are not currently considering you for relocation to Rwanda.”

Lawyers were highly critical of the contents of the covering letter. One immigration lawyer, who knew of 10 clients that had received the notices, said the use of the term “currently” in relation to the threat of relocation to Rwanda was “very misleading and very sneaky”. They said it created the impression individuals would not be sent to the African nation in the future.

Sonali Naik, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers who specialises in immigration cases, said she believed the letters were “clearly intended for the people who would be placed on . . . charter flights to Rwanda”.

One government official confirmed the notifications were sent out to “start the process of relocation to Rwanda and so condense the timeframes to enable a first flight as soon as possible after [the bill receives] royal assent”.

The legal notices, which were sent over the past fortnight, gave individuals up to 14 calendar days to respond and warned that some of their information may be shared with the “third country”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We have always been clear that anyone arriving illegally after 1 January 2022 could be in scope for removal to Rwanda,” adding removal flights would start as soon as the legislation passed into law.

2024-03-29T05:02:20Z dg43tfdfdgfd