By Fortune Tazvida
More than 10 000 failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers face deportation back home after the United Kingdom’s most senior immigration judge ruled it was now safe to return them. For the last 5 years a ban on removals has been in place.
All this changed on Monday when Justice Blake, president of the Upper Tribunal for immigration and asylum, sitting with two other judges, revised formal guidance on Zimbabwe to pave way for the deportation of those whose claims failed.
The writing was on the wall in October last year when Immigration Minister Damian Green signaled that the suspension on removals was going to be lifted by the UK Home Office. It seems they were just waiting for the Upper Tribunal ruling before acting.
It remains to be seen how the Home Office will act given the same court stressed it may still be too dangerous to send people back to some rural villages where there was still serious risk of persecution.
It’s estimated there are 10,000 failed Zimbabwean asylum seekers in the UK and out of that number 3,000 have exhausted all appeals and challenges.
Matthew Coats, head of immigration at the UK Border Agency, said “We welcome the court’s findings. The UK Border Agency will continue to consider all asylum applications from Zimbabwe on their individual merits and with enormous care.
“We prefer people who are here illegally to leave voluntarily and we offer an assistance package to help them reintegrate into their home country. For those who choose not to do so, it becomes necessary to enforce their departure.”
There is outrage that the UK government has stuck to the EU position of maintaining targeted sanctions on the Mugabe regime because there are no adequate political reforms and yet insists it’s safe to deport failed asylum seekers.
Meantime in Zimbabwe the military has taken full control of political affairs with the intelligence unit exploring several options, including arresting the Prime Minister just before an election over WikiLeaks revelations.
The regime is also considering the post-election scenario, and a sensational plan to put the country under military rule if Mugabe loses the elections. In the last 2 months over a 100 opposition activists have been arrested in a brutal crackdown.
