British authorities have started detaining asylum seekers as part of a new scheme to deport them to Rwanda, the government said, with the first flights expected to take off as early as July. \u201cOur dedicated enforcement teams are working at pace to swiftly detain those who have no right to be here so we can get flights off the ground,\u201d said Home Secretary James Cleverly on Wednesday. Confirmation of the round-ups came a week after legislators passed a contentious law declaring Rwanda to be a safe third country, bypassing an earlier UK Supreme Court ruling that had declared the scheme unlawful on human rights grounds. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who has promised to stop migrants and asylum seekers arriving on small boats from mainland Europe, had declared last week that the government would begin detaining people promptly before deportation flights start within \u201c10 to 12 weeks\u201c. Calling it \u201canother major milestone\u201d in the Rwanda plan, the UK\u2019s Home Office released photographs and a video of immigration enforcement officers detaining several people with handcuffs at different residences. \u201cThis government has lost it\u2019s last ounce of humanity,\u201d the charity, Freedom from Torture, posted on social media on Wednesday. A senior minister revealed on Tuesday that the government expects to deport 5,700 people this year, after it was confirmed that Rwanda had \u201cin principle\u201d agreed to accept that number. However, the authorities have lost contact with thousands of potential deportees, with only 2,143 \u201clocated for detention\u201d. More than 3,500 are currently unaccounted for. Ministers have insisted enforcement teams will find them. Commercial charter planes have already been booked and an airport has been put on standby. More than 7,500 people have arrived in the country on small boats from France so far this year, and the government says the policy will deter people from making the dangerous journey across the English Channel. Mindful of the Supreme Court ruling, issued last November, human rights groups and unions opposed to the policy are expected to launch new legal challenges to stop the flights from taking off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
British authorities have started detaining asylum seekers as part of a new scheme to deport them to Rwanda, the government said, with the first flights…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16695,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}