Belfast judge says parts of the UK’s migrant deportation law shouldn’t apply to Northern Ireland

By BRIAN MELLEY
Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — A Belfast judge says that the United Kingdom’s law to deport asylum-seekers shouldn’t apply in Northern Ireland because parts of it violate human rights protections. A High Court judge on Monday said the Illegal Migration Act is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights and undermines rights provided in the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998. The U.K. government says it will appeal. The law was challenged by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and a 16-year-old Iranian boy who crossed the English Channel last year without any parents and claimed asylum in U.K.