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Insiders say plans to accept Rwandan refugees are already being “quietly abandoned” by the Home Office, despite pledges from Home Secretary Rishi Sunak that flights will operate from next month if the Conservatives win the election.
During a televised debate last week, the prime minister insisted the first planes would leave for Kigali on July 24, adding: “We have already started detaining people, airfields are on standby and flights have been booked.”
However, on the same day he issued a statement saying the Home Office would release asylum seekers from migration centres.
Last night Mr Sunak repeated his claims on the BBC. Question Time“If I were your prime minister, I would prepare planes to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda,” he said.
but I It emerged that the Ministry of Interior had already backed away from government plans to continually send new detainees ready to be sent to Rwanda to replace those released on bail.
major The government has expanded the scheme to include immigrants whose asylum applications have been rejected. Plans announced by Home Secretary James Cleverley in May were also quietly scrapped because they were not feasible, sources said. I.
Charities and lawyers say nearly all those detained in the high-profile operation, which began just before local elections in May to prepare for an airlift to Rwanda, have been released on bail, and humanitarian groups have not reported any new detentions for more than a month.
“The costs of detaining people are staggering.”
A Home Office source said it was “optimistic” to think the new Conservative government would be able to make all the legal decisions needed to remand migrants and put them on a flight to Kigali by July 24, adding: “This is not about actually doing anything but creating the appearance that things are happening. The cost of detaining people is enormous.”
Another source said the Home Office “has already changed its policy towards Rwanda in anticipation of a Labour victory but does not want to be seen as changing it as it does not want to be seen as predicting a change of government,” adding that “the plan has been quietly abandoned.”
Groups representing detained asylum seekers said they were initially released on bail by judges’ orders following individual lawsuits against them for unlawful detention, but last week the Home Office began releasing people on its own discretion, before their cases had been heard in the court of first instance.
The department has begun fighting bail applications again, but it is unlikely to succeed as immigrants can only be lawfully detained if they are to be deported within a “reasonable” period of time.
In a ruling against a Syrian asylum seeker on 24 May, the judge said: “Since his detention, the government has called a general election for 4 July 2024 and confirmed that no deportation to Rwanda will take place until after that date…Deportation is not imminent and, on the basis of the evidence before me, I am unable to conclude that deportation is likely to occur within a reasonable timeframe.”
In the week before Mr Sunak called the election, the government expanded the Rwanda scheme to include not only asylum seekers who had been deemed “inadmissible” because they arrived in small boats, but also those whose refugee status had been refused.
But Home Office officials said they could not put rejected asylum seekers on planes because training required for staff to select suitable candidates was scrapped earlier this month.
Plan to fly rejected asylum seekers to Rwanda ‘not feasible’
“They announced it before everything was ready and it has turned out to be unworkable,” the official said. “Rishi is taking a gamble. He is pretending they are still being held to appear bullish, but from a legal point of view, the right thing to do is to release them.”
Tara Wolf, a lawyer working on the Rwanda case for the charity Bail in Immigration Detainees (BID), said everyone who has been detained since the operation began on April 29 must be released.
“The first group was all detained within about three days of the local elections, and those whose asylum applications had been rejected started to be accepted around mid-May,” she added.
“We are aware of over 80 people who have made successful bail applications so far and we are preparing for more cases next week.”
Laura Smith, joint legal director at the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI), said: “All of our clients who were detained were released on bail around the time of or before the general election was announced.”
“If there is a change in circumstances the Home Office will have to consider whether there is a reasonable prospect of removal, which clearly there isn’t. They should all have been released when Rishi Sunak made the announcement.”
The Jesuit Refugee Service, which provides support to asylum seekers in detention, said it was aware that a small number of refugees were still remaining in immigration detention centres, but that the majority of affected migrants had left the centres.
Senior policy officer Sophie Cartwright said the psychological impact on those selected was “horrifying”, adding: “They came here in search of a safe haven. Many had fled conflict, many had survived torture and trafficking. They feared that if they were sent to Rwanda it might happen again.”
Asylum seekers detained in Operation Rwanda, which the Home Office has named “Vector”, include those from countries with very high refugee recognition rates, including Syria, Eritrea, Sudan and Iran.
The Home Office refused to publish figures on how many people had been detained or subsequently released, but said all those granted immigration bail were subject to strict reporting conditions, including no face-to-face visits.
The Conservative Party has been approached for comment.