The Home Office has admitted to losing contact with thousands of migrants due to be deported to Rwanda, with claims they may have fled to Ireland.
An internal document revealed that officials are only in contact with 2,143 of the 5,700 people scheduled for the first flights to the African state.
Ministers insisted asylum seekers will be traced as the policy gets closer to being implemented.
But Labor called the situation a “farce”, saying it exposed the “complete lack of control” the government had over the asylum system.
Experts suggested that many of the missing people had committed a “disappearing act” because they did not want to be sent to Rwanda. Kevin Saunders, former Border Force immigration chief, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: They are not going to appear, or certainly not in the UK. They will probably appear in Ireland.
The figures could fuel an increasingly bitter row after Dublin complained that large numbers of migrants are crossing the invisible border into Northern Ireland.
The United Kingdom has rejected the Republic’s efforts to pass new laws to allow asylum seekers to be returned.
The Conservatives have criticized Ireland for being “hypocritical” and “whiny” after condemning Britain’s efforts to reach a deportation deal with Rwanda.
Tents housing asylum seekers in Dublin yesterday. The Irish government has complained that the figures are determined by the UK’s plans for Rwanda.
Clumsy Home Office officials have admitted they cannot find thousands of migrants who will be deported to Rwanda (pictured: migrants cross the English Channel in a small boat in March)
In an updated document assessing the impact of the partnership with the East African country, it is stated that Rwanda agreed to host 5,700 people, but only 2,143 of them continue to report.
In a round of interviews this morning, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins told Sky News that the Home Office was “used to this” and that law enforcement agencies had “a number of measures” to find and expel people who did not show up as necessary.
She said: “We want the message to go out loud and clear that if someone doesn’t report as they should, they shouldn’t think they will get away with it.” They will be found.’
The figures come from an impact assessment by the Government’s Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda, under which the UK agreed to pay Kigali to accept asylum seekers who have crossed the English Channel in small boats.
The document, updated yesterday on the Home Office website, also acknowledges that there could be further delays in deportations caused by MPs making last-minute moves to suspend deportations.
There is a long-standing parliamentary convention that dismissals can be suspended until a case has been considered and a response has been issued to the MP.
The assessment says that given the ‘novel nature’ of the scheme, ‘we can expect future (Partnership for Economic Development and Migration) cases to attract significant attention from parliamentarians, and responders may become overwhelmed by cases, causing a delay or cancellation of an expulsion. answer pending’.
It appears to be the latest in a series of setbacks to the government’s stalled plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was announced two years ago but no flights have yet taken off.
A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘As the Prime Minister has made clear, we will be taking off flights to Rwanda in the next 10 to 12 weeks.
“In preparation for the flights to take off, we have identified the initial cohort that will be flown to Rwanda and we have hundreds of dedicated caseworkers ready to process any appeals.”
The department has also insisted that it stays in touch with asylum seekers through multiple avenues and not just in person.
Saunders said the numbers “don’t surprise me in the least.”
“What happened was that the Ministry of Interior notified people who arrived between January 2022 and June 2023 that they could be responsible for their deportation to Rwanda,” he said.
‘The immigrants ignored this because they were told this was never going to happen and it was a bit silly, forget it all.
‘Now that they have the new Rwanda Law on the table, they are… very worried that they are going to be removed, so they have committed a disappearing act.
Saunders added: “These are people they’ve lost touch with.” They are not going to appear, at least not in the UK. They will probably appear in Ireland.
“But they know they are under the elimination process, they don’t want to be eliminated, so they are going to disappear.”
‘We know it will work because people are already disappearing.
‘They don’t want to go to Rwanda… go to Ireland first, disappear into the unregulated economy.
“I would stop anyone who comes… it’s the only way to do it.”
Stephen Kinnock, shadow immigration minister He said: ‘The Prime Minister promised to arrest and expel all those crossing the Channel. He now he can’t even locate those who are going to be eliminated.
‘How can the Conservative Home Office keep losing so many people?’
Rishi Sunak has flatly rejected the idea of accepting asylum seekers returning from Ireland.
The Prime Minister said yesterday he was “not interested” in a return deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to return asylum seekers who had crossed the Channel from France.
Dublin has claimed that the number of asylum seekers crossing from Northern Ireland is now “over 80 per cent” of Ireland’s overall total due to a change in migration patterns in recent months.
The issue was discussed by the UK and Irish governments at high-level talks in London on Monday.
Ireland has proposed new legislation to make it easier to send migrants to the UK, effectively overturning a ruling by the Irish High Court that the UK is no longer a “safe third country” for returning asylum seekers due to the Rwanda scheme .
At a joint press conference in Westminster, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin sought to downplay any disagreement on the issue.
Heaton-Harris said: “The UK’s new deterrent is clearly working and is already having some impact.” An impact that will obviously increase as the first flights to Rwanda take off.
“We will obviously be following this very closely and will continue to work with the Irish Government on these matters.”
Heaton-Harris said there was “no way we would want to alter our relationship with Ireland”.
There is a “joint commitment to protect the travel commons from abuse,” he added.
The Cabinet minister said that while the deterrent effect was anticipated, “we are a little surprised that it manifested itself so quickly after the bill became law.”
But Conservative MP Mark Francois told GB News that Ireland had been “thrown by its own petard”.
“The stench of hypocrisy over this is worse than a 10-year-old pint of Guinness gone bad,” he said. “I remember what I call the Brexit Battle in the House of Commons, being told night after night, week after week, including people quoting the Irish government and then seeing it in clips from Dublin: There are no hard borders in the island of Ireland under any circumstances.
‘Complete free movement across that border. And there was a loophole, which became known as the Dublin Convention.
“So now for the Irish government to shout that these rules are against their national interest when they are the people who defended them for years, it can’t be made up.”
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