Over 18,000 who faced Rwanda removal are now having cases dealt with in UK

People crossing the Channel on a small boat on 6 March. Legislation has introduced increasingly strict rules clamping down on those who arrive via irregular means. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA

More than 18,000 asylum seekers threatened with being sent to Rwanda are now having their cases processed in the UK instead.

Freedom of information data obtained by the Guardian reveals that between January 2021 and June 2023 about three-quarters (18,078) of those who previously received notice of intent letters indicating their claims would not be processed in the UK “have been subsequently admitted into the asylum system”.

A notice of intent letter is issued after the Home Office has declared an asylum claim inadmissible and removal from the UK is being considered.

Data previously obtained from the Home Office about the number of notices issued over a similar period – January 2021 to March 2023 – revealed 24,083 notices were issued.

The latest disclosures come as Rishi Sunak hopes his safety of Rwanda bill will clear the final hurdles of its difficult passage through parliament this week.

The prime minister said on Monday morning that the first flight to Kigali would take off “in 10 to 12 weeks”, contradicting his longstanding promise that they would start this spring.

Rules about the inadmissibility of asylum claims came into force in January 2021. Since then, successive pieces of legislation have introduced increasingly strict rules clamping down on those who arrive via irregular means – such as dinghies crossing the Channel – as part of the government’s vow to “stop the boats”. But crossings have been at high levels so far this year with asylum seekers telling the Guardian that smugglers had dropped their prices from approximately £4,000 to about £1,000.

The Illegal Migration Act, which became law on 20 July 2023, places a legal duty on the home secretary to remove anyone arriving irregularly to the UK to their home country or to Rwanda. Not all parts of the act have become operational and so far nobody has been removed to Rwanda.

At a session of parliament’s cross-party public accounts committee on Monday, the Conservative MP Tim Loughton asked senior Home Office officials what was going to happen to the roughly 40,000 asylum seekers who had arrived in the UK since July 2023 but were not having their claims processed here – with the prospect of them all being sent to Rwanda viewed as unlikely. Officials were unable to provide a clear answer.

Steve Smith, the chief executive of the charity Care4Calais, said: “Every single one of these 18,078 asylum claims were unnecessarily put on hold by these notices of intent, which have only had the effect of keeping people’s lives in limbo.

“This a government that has a gimmick in Rwanda, but no plan to deal with the tens of thousands of asylum claims stuck in the governmentcreated perma-backlog. Holding people in the asylum system for years is bad for people’s health and wellbeing, and it pushes up the cost of what is a completely broken asylum system under this current government.”

A government spokesperson said: “Asylum seekers who arrived illegally after 20 July 2023 will be subject to a duty to remove and will have their asylum claim be declared inadmissible.

“Once the safety of Rwanda bill and treaty are in place, we will get flights off the ground as soon as possible.”