World
UK has begun mass arrests of potential Rwanda deportees: What’s next?
The British authorities have begun a series of operations to detain migrants in preparation for their deportation to Rwanda as part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s flagship immigration policy.
The UK Home Office, which oversees immigration matters in the United Kingdom, released a video on Wednesday showing armed immigration officers handcuffing individuals at their homes and escorting them into deportation vans.
In a statement, it announced a “series of nationwide operations” ahead of the first deportations to begin in the next nine to 11 weeks. Interior minister James Cleverly said enforcement teams were “working at pace to swiftly detain those who have no right to be here so we can get flights off the ground”.
BREAKING: The first people set to be removed to Rwanda have been detained. pic.twitter.com/2WWNhQVC1l
— Home Office (@ukhomeoffice) May 1, 2024
Last month, Parliament approved a controversial law – known as the Safety of Rwanda Bill – that allows for asylum seekers who arrive illegally in Britain to be deported to Rwanda, even after the UK Supreme Court declared the policy unlawful last year.
Sunak, who is expected to call an election later this year, said the flagship immigration policy seeks to deter people from crossing the English Channel in small boats and to tackle the issue of people-smuggling gangs.
Unions and human rights charities have expressed dismay at the wave of arrests so far. While some have succeeded in blocking transfers to removal centres, they say it is becoming increasingly difficult to bring legal action.
Who is being targeted by the campaign of mass arrests?
The Home Office has announced it is carrying out arrests within an initial cohort of about 5,700 men and women who arrived in the UK without prior permission between January 2022 and June 2023. Those who fall within this group have been sent a “notice of intent” stating that they are being considered for deportation to Rwanda.
However, it was revealed this week that government data shows that the Home Office has lost contact with thousands of potential deportees, with only 2,143 “located for detention” so far. More than 3,500 are unaccounted for, with some thought to have fled across the Northern Irish border into Ireland. Others include people who have failed to attend mandatory appointments with the UK authorities. Ministers have insisted enforcement teams will find them.
Several asylum seekers who did attend compulsory appointments with the UK authorities as part of their application for asylum this week have been arrested and told they will be sent to Rwanda.
Fizza Qureshi, CEO of the charity Migrants’ Rights Network, told Al Jazeera that “people are forced to go and report in these Home Office centres and once they are there, there is no guarantee that they’ll come out free”.
The government has not provided exact figures for the number of arrests conducted since the operation started on Monday, but detentions have been reported across the UK in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and in cities including Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham and Glasgow.
Maddie Harris, founder of the UK-based Humans for Rights Network, told Al Jazeera that asylum seekers from war-torn countries including Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria and Eritrea with no connection to Rwanda are being arrested as part of the scheme.
One of the organisation’s clients, a young woman who has been in the UK for almost two years, was arrested as part of the crackdown. “She is absolutely terrified,” Harris said, adding that while the young woman has no connection to Rwanda, she was told she would be deported to the Eastern African country.
According to Humans for Rights Network, individuals who have filled out a Home Office questionnaire over the past two years were also being arrested. The organisation said it had initially believed completing the form indicated that the client had been admitted into the UK asylum system and could not be deported.
That assumption has been proven false and “that’s very concerning”, Harris said.
How is the arrest campaign affecting the people being targeted?
Rights groups, including Migrants’ Rights Network, have been successful in blocking the transfer of some people to removal centres in several cases, but Qureshi said it required “24/7 resistance” for each individual case.
Qureshi added that the arrests have had a chilling effect, pushing asylum seekers to evade authorities and into exploitative situations. “Raids push people underground and away from support systems,” she said. “There is no safe option for people and that has been made clear.”
Natasha Tsangarides, associate director of advocacy at Freedom from Torture, said detentions run the risk of rekindling pre-existing trauma in people who were subject to torture or ill-treatment, while also driving them away from support systems.
“Clinicians who work with torture survivors every day in our therapy rooms have recognised that many will experience re-traumatisation even with a very short time in detention,” Tsangarides said, adding that this would deteriorate trauma symptoms.
“Not only does this legislation place people at risk of harm if they are sent to Rwanda, but it spreads such terror in the community that we worry people may go underground to avoid taking any risk.”
The UK government has not ruled out sending survivors of torture to Rwanda.
Could legal action stop the deportations?
The ruling Conservative party’s plan to deport immigrants who have entered the UK without permission to Rwanda has faced more than two years of legal hurdles and political wrangling between the two houses of Parliament.
In June 2022, the first flight taking refugees to Rwanda was stopped at the last minute by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Last year, the UK Supreme Court declared the deportation scheme unlawful on the basis that the government could not guarantee the safety of migrants once they had arrived in Rwanda.
The Safety of Rwanda Bill, which was passed on April 23, circumvented the Supreme Court ruling by designating the East African country as a safe destination, paving the way for deportations to begin.
The Illegal Migration Act, which became law in July 2023, also stated that anyone who arrives in the UK on small boats will be prevented from claiming asylum, detained and then deported either back to their homelands or to a third country, such as Rwanda.
Jonathan Featonby, chief policy analyst at Refugee Council, told Al Jazeera that both legislations severely limit the ability of people to challenge their removal to Rwanda through the courts.
Under the plan, asylum seekers arriving illegally in the UK can be sent to Rwanda to be processed within the East African country’s legal system and will not be able to return to the UK.
“In reality, people’s ability to continue that challenge and get the support they need to go through that process is severely limited,” Featonby said. “There are some legal organisations coming together to make sure they can provide legal support and challenge both individual cases and the legislation itself, but it is quite unclear how successful those challenges will be.”
The senior civil servants’ union FDA on Wednesday submitted an application for a judicial review against the government’s Rwanda plan, arguing that it leaves its members at risk of breaching international law if they follow a minister’s demands.
Featonby said appeals can also be filed at the European Court of Human Rights, “but that will take time and it will likely not prevent someone from being removed to Rwanda in the meantime”.
“Not only is the legislation dehumanising people coming to the UK to seek protection, but it is shutting down the asylum process,” he added.
“We are calling for the whole plan and the Illegal Migration Act to be scrapped and for the government to run a fair, efficient and humane asylum system.”
World
UN Human Rights Council chief cuts off speaker criticizing US-sanctioned official
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The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) abruptly cut off a video statement after the speaker began criticizing several United Nations officials, including one who has been sanctioned by the Trump administration. The video message was being played during a U.N. session in Geneva, Switzerland, Friday morning.
Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the and president of Human Rights, called out several U.N. officials in her message, including U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk and special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who is the subject of U.S. sanctions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions against Albanese July 9, 2025, saying that she “has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism and open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West.”
“That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant,” Rubio added.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Francesca Albanese (Getty Images)
“I was the only American U.N.-accredited NGO with a speaking slot, and I wasn’t allowed even to conclude my 90 seconds of allotted time. Free speech is non-existent at the U.N. so-called ‘Human Rights Council,’” Bayefsky told Fox News Digital.
Bayefsky noted the irony of the council cutting off her video in a proceeding that was said to be an “interactive dialogue,” an event during which experts are allowed to speak to the council about human rights issues.
“I was cut off after naming Francesca Albanese, Navi Pillay and Chris Sidoti for covering up Palestinian use of rape as a weapon of war and trafficking in blatant antisemitism. I named the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, who is facing disturbing sexual assault allegations but still unaccountable almost two years later. Those are the people and the facts that the United Nations wants to protect and hide,” Bayefsky told Fox News Digital.
“It is an outrage that I am silenced and singled out for criticism on the basis of naming names.”
Bayefsky’s statement was cut off as she accused Albanese and Navi Pillay, the former chair of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and Chris Sidoti, a commissioner of the U.N. Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory. She also slammed Khan, who has faced rape allegations. Khan has denied the sexual misconduct allegations against him.
Had her video message been played in full, Bayefsky would have gone on to criticize Türk’s recent report for not demanding accountability for the “Palestinian policy to pay to kill Jews, including Hamas terror boss Yahya Sinwar who got half a million dollars in blood money.”
When the video was cut short, Human Rights Council President Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro characterized Bayefsky’s remarks as “derogatory, insulting and inflammatory” and said that they were “not acceptable.”
“The language used by the speaker cannot be allowed as it has exceeded the limits of tolerance and respect within the framework of the council which we all in this room hold to,” Suryodipuro said.
The Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 26, 2025. (Denis Balibouse/Reuters)
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In response to Fox News Digital’s request for comment, Human Rights Council Media Officer Pascal Sim said the council has had long-established rules on what it considers to be acceptable language.
“Rulings regarding the form and language of interventions in the Human Rights Council are established practices that have been in place throughout the existence of the council and used by all council presidents when it comes to ensuring respect, tolerance and dignity inherent to the discussion of human rights issues,” Sim told Fox News Digital.
When asked if the video had been reviewed ahead of time, Sim said it was assessed for length and audio quality to allow for interpretation, but that the speakers are ultimately “responsible for the content of their statement.”
“The video statement by the NGO ‘Touro Law Center, The Institute on Human Rights and The Holocaust’ was interrupted when it was deemed that the language exceeded the limits of tolerance and respect within the framework of the council and could not be tolerated,” Sim said.
“As the presiding officer explained at the time, all speakers are to remain within the appropriate framework and terminology used in the council’s work, which is well known by speakers who routinely participate in council proceedings. Following that ruling, none of the member states of the council have objected to it.”
Flag alley at the United Nations’ European headquarters during the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 11, 2023. (Denis Balibouse/File Photo/Reuters)
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While Bayefsky’s statement was cut off, other statements accusing Israel of genocide and ethnic cleansing were allowed to be played and read in full.
This is not the first time that Bayefsky was interrupted. Exactly one year ago, on Feb. 27, 2025, her video was cut off when she mentioned the fate of Ariel and Kfir Bibas. Jürg Lauber, president of the U.N. Human Rights Council at the time, stopped the video and declared that Bayefsky had used inappropriate language.
Bayefsky began the speech by saying, “The world now knows Palestinian savages murdered 9-month-old baby Kfir,” and she ws almost immediately cut off by Lauber.
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“Sorry, I have to interrupt,” Lauber abruptly said as the video of Bayefsky was paused. Lauber briefly objected to the “language” used in the video, but then allowed it to continue. After a few more seconds, the video was shut off entirely.
Lauber reiterated that “the language that’s used by the speaker cannot be tolerated,” adding that it “exceeds clearly the limits of tolerance and respect.”
Last year, when the previous incident occurred, Bayefsky said she believed the whole thing was “stage-managed,” as the council had advanced access to her video and a transcript and knew what she would say.
World
Did the EU bypass Hungary’s veto on Ukraine’s €90 billion loan?
A post on X by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has triggered a wave of misinformation linked to the EU’s €90 billion support loan to Ukraine, which is designed to help Kyiv meet its general budget and defence needs amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.
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Hungary said earlier this week that it would block both the loan — agreed by EU leaders in December — and a new EU sanctions package against Moscow amid a dispute over oil supplies.
Shortly afterwards, Metsola posted on X that she had signed the Ukraine support loan on behalf of the parliament.
She said the funds would be used to maintain essential public services, support Ukraine’s defence, protect shared European security, and anchor Ukraine’s future within Europe.
The announcement triggered a wave of reactions online, with some claiming Hungary’s veto had been ignored, but this is incorrect.
Metsola did sign the loan on behalf of the European Parliament, but that’s only one step in the EU’s legislative process. Her signature does not mean the loan has been definitively implemented.
How the process works
In December, after failing to reach an agreement on using frozen Russian assets to fund Ukraine’s war effort, the European Council agreed in principle to provide €90 billion to help Kyiv meet its budgetary and military needs over the next two years.
On 14 January, the European Commission put forward a package of legislative proposals to ensure continued financial support for Ukraine in 2026 and 2027.
These included a proposal to establish a €90 billion Ukraine support loan, amendments to the Ukraine Facility — the EU instrument used to deliver budgetary assistance — and changes to the EU’s multiannual financial framework so the loan could be backed by any unused budgetary “headroom”.
Under EU law, these proposals must be adopted by both the European Parliament and the European Council. Because the loan requires amendments to EU budgetary rules, it ultimately needs unanimous approval from all member states.
Metsola’s signature therefore does not amount to a final decision, nor does it override Hungary’s veto.
The oil dispute behind Hungary’s opposition
Budapest says its objections are linked to a dispute over the Druzhba pipeline, a Soviet-era route that carries Russian oil via Ukraine to Hungary and Slovakia.
According to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), Hungary and Slovakia imported an estimated €137 million worth of Russian crude through the pipeline in January alone, under a temporary EU exemption.
Oil flows reportedly stopped in late January after a Russian air strike that Kyiv says damaged the pipeline’s southern branch in western Ukraine. Hungary disputes this, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán accusing Ukraine of blocking it from being used.
Speaking in Kyiv alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the pipeline had been damaged by Russia, not Kyiv.
He added that repairs were dangerous and could not be carried out quickly without putting Ukrainian servicemen in danger.
Tensions escalated further after reports that Ukraine struck a Russian pumping station serving the pipeline. Orbán responded by ordering increased security at critical infrastructure sites, claiming Kyiv was attempting to disrupt Hungary’s energy system.
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