In a historic first, Britain has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country, under a voluntary removals programme.
The asylum seeker was put on a flight to Rwanda on Monday, the Home Office has confirmed to The Epoch Times.
The VRS offers illegal immigrants a chance to return home. Earlier this year, the scheme was widened to include Rwanda.
He was a failed asylum claimant, who took the voluntary offer some weeks ago.
Although the first deportation flight to Rwanda is not part of the government’s flagship immigration scheme, it comes as Downing Street prepares to get many more planes off the ground to Kigali this year.
“We are now able to send asylum seekers to Rwanda under our migration and economic development partnership. This deal allows people with no immigration status in the UK to be relocated to a safe third country where they will be supported to rebuild their lives,” a government spokesperson said.
Business and Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch said that the first removal counters myths about Rwanda not being a safe country.
Pre-Election ‘Gimmicks’
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose party has pledged to stop the small boat crossings in the English Channel, believes that the Rwanda bill will deter illegal immigration.Delivering on one of his primary political pledges is crucial for Mr. Sunak, given the upcoming general election. Getting flights off the ground to Rwanda could also boost the Conservatives’ chances in May local elections.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper called the deportation of the first failed asylum seeker to Rwanda an “extortionate pre-election gimmick.”
“Tories so desperate to get any flight to Rwanda before elections that they just paid one person to volunteer,” Ms. Cooper said on the social media platform X.
In her post, the opposition minister said that UK taxpayers will have to foot the bill of half a billion pounds. She said that the government has also paid for five years of the volunteers’ board and lodging in Rwanda.
This money should be invested in “boosting our border security,” Ms. Cooper added, noting the returns scheme has suffered and “collapsed” under Conservative rule since 2010.
The home affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, Alistair Carmichael, said that “paying someone to go to Rwanda just to get an eve of poll headline highlights just how much of a farce their plan is.”
Mr. Carmichael said the Conservatives don’t stand good chances at the local elections this week.
“Reflecting further on this today it really does demonstrate the sheer myopic desperation of the Tories. Even if this were done under the ’real' Rwanda scheme, sending one (1) person on a flight for the sake of eve-of-poll headlines makes the scheme look more ridiculous, not less,” he said in an X post.
As the government enters its final phase of “operationalising” the Rwanda bill, Home Secretary James Cleverly said on Tuesday that the first flights are expected to take off in nine to eleven weeks.
Since the beginning of the year, the Home Office has recorded 7,567 illegal immigrants crossing the English Channel on small boats. In the last seven days, the number of crossings stood at 900.
Last week, five people, including a child, were killed in one of the crossings.
The latest deaths in the English Channel add to hundreds of reported deaths at sea of people trying to reach the UK. According to the Border Force, more than 120,000 crossings have been detected since recording began in 2018.
The Home Office also said that so far this year, the top three most common nationalities of immigrants arriving on small boats are Vietnamese, Afghani, and Iranian.
Mr. Cleverly said the UK government was doing everything possible to stop the illegal small boat crossings, while Mr. Sunak stressed the deterrent effect of the Rwanda scheme.
