Migrants given a week to challenge transfer to Rwanda

DETAINED Channel migrants will get seven days to argue against being sent to Rwanda as the Government seeks to head off legal challenges.

Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, admitted the court actions could delay their removal as she put the first migrants on notice that they face fasttrack to removal to Rwanda by the end of the month.

“This is just the first stage of the process and we know it will take time as some will seek to frustrate the process and delay removals,” Ms Patel said.

The migrants will be told they have seven days to present their legal arguments to be considered by the Home Office before it issues notices for them to be flown to Rwanda five days later.

The timescale and criteria for relocating them is set out in new Home Office guidance designed to head off legal challenges by including a “formal, robust and comprehensive” assessment of Rwanda as a “safe country to which migrants can be sent”.

However, charities have already started compiling databases of migrants to fight their removal case by case on several grounds including breaches of human rights laws, of the UN refugee convention and of international law.