The foreign minister has said Rwanda’s flight policy is “completely moral” following criticism of the Church of England’s top management.
Liz Truss said the first flight that would take asylum seekers to Rwanda would take off on Tuesday afternoon with few people, and said the important point was the beginning.
In a letter to the Times, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, as well as the other 24 bishops sitting as Spiritual Lords in the House of Lords, said that politics “should shame us as a nation.”
He said, “The shame is ours, because our Christian heritage should inspire us to treat asylum seekers with compassion, fairness, and justice, as we have done for centuries.”
Chelmsford Bishop Guli Francis-Dehqani, who arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker in 1980, said people who had been traumatized and risked their lives to cross into boats children should “at least have the human dignity to have their cases heard.”
“Without their consent, taking them on a flight to another country 4,000 miles away is not about treating them with the human dignity that each of us deserves,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today program.
“Nor am I sure there is evidence to show that it has worked in the past, all the hostile environmental policy of previous years.”
Asked about criticism from senior bishops, Truss told Sky News: “I do not agree with that. The people who are immoral in this case are human traffickers who trade in human misery. These people should suggest a policy. Our policy is completely legal, it is completely moral.
“What I am saying to policy critics, who have no alternative to how we treat this illegal immigration, is that they have no alternative, they are criticizing our policy, which is effective and works. . ”
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Truss said the most important point would be to establish the principle that people could be relocated to Rwanda. A significant number of asylum seekers who were told they would be put on the flight have had their tickets canceled following successful appeals, including evidence of torture.
“The most important thing is that we establish the principle and start breaking the business model of these horrible traffickers of people who trade miserably,” Truss said. “That’s why we’re doing this policy and that’s why it’s important that we take off today.”
When asked if there could be anyone on this flight, he said, “There will be people on the flight, and if they are not on this flight they will be on the next … I don’t have a figure. The important point is the beginning.” .
Politics has led to widespread condemnation beyond the Church of England, where the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he “could not stand the judgment of God”. Prince Charles is said to have privately described the plan as “creepy”.
Care4Calais, one of the charities that filed the defeated legal appeal to stop the flight, said only seven migrants waiting to be removed still had live tickets.
Three more complaints from people facing deportation are expected to be dealt with in the High Court on Tuesday.