U.K. Supreme Court strikes down plan to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda

Protesters stand outside the Supreme Court in London on Wednesday.

Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

LONDON — In a massive defeat for the British prime minister, the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court unanimously ruled Wednesday that the government’s controversial immigration policy is unlawful.

The country’s top court has blocked Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship policy that would send asylum-seekers to Rwanda, whose authorities would process their claims.

“There are substantial grounds for believing that asylum seekers would face a real risk of ill-treatment” by being sent back to “their country of origin if they were removed to Rwanda,” the court said.

Following the ruling, Sunak said in a news conference Wednesday evening that he would “pass emergency legislation” to deem Rwanda a safe country and that he would “not allow foreign courts to block the flights” the U.K. plans to use to transfer migrants to the African country.

The European Court of Human Rights blocked the first planned flight to Rwanda in June 2022, and none has taken off since.

The British government has reported an increase in the number of migrants taking small boats across the English Channel to the United Kingdom. Prime Minister Sunak has made it a key pledge to stop these crossings, campaigning on the slogan “stop the boats.”

The government has said the threat of being deported to Rwanda would deter migrants from making that journey. Critics and lawmakers say there’s no evidence that would work.

For now, commentators and experts say the plan — for which the government has already paid Rwanda almost $175 million — is in tatters.

Eighteen months after the U.K. government announced the Rwanda policy, and a general election…