Missing migrants earmarked for Rwanda ‘will probably turn up in Ireland’

Migrants on a boat

Migrants earmarked for the first deportation flights to Rwanda will disappear and “probably” end up in Ireland, a former Border Force chief has warned.

The warning by Kevin Saunders, the former chief immigration officer, came as the Home Office admitted it was unable to locate thousands of migrants it intends to start detaining this week ready for deportation to Rwanda.

More than 5,700 migrants have been identified for removal but only 2,145 of them continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention, according to a document released on Monday.

The Home Office has insisted that the remaining 3,557 have not necessarily absconded but are not subject to reporting restrictions, which means they cannot be located for detention.

Mr Saunders, who was chief immigration officer from 2001 to 2016, said that the migrants were originally identified for deportation to Rwanda after arriving in 2022 and 2023 but had so far avoided removal.

‘They are going to disappear’

“Now that we have the new Rwanda Act on the table, they are worried they are going to be removed so they have done a disappearing act,” said Mr Saunders.

Asked on BBC Radio 4 if the Home Office was wrong to claim they were not missing, he said: “I would not like to say the Home Office are telling porkies. Let’s say they temporarily cannot find them.

“It is people they have lost contact with. They are not going to appear, certainly not in the UK. They will probably turn up in Ireland. They know they are in the frame to be removed. They don’t want to be removed so they are going to disappear.”

Mr Saunders said he still believed the Rwanda deportation scheme would work and would act as a deterrent,but he said he would have preferred for all migrants entering the UK illegally across the Channel to be detained despite the huge cost.

Row over migrant returns

The disclosure comes amid a growing row between the UK and Ireland which is drawing up emergency legislation to return asylum seekers back to the UK.

It claims that 80 per cent of asylum seekers turning up in Dublin have crossed the border from Northern Ireland in order to avoid being sent to Rwanda.

Victoria Atkins, the Health Secretary, said law enforcement agencies would be pursuing asylum seekers who have failed to keep in contact with the Home Office, a Cabinet minister has said.

She told GB News: “Law enforcement will be after these people, so that isn’t the end of the story by any means.

“We know the success that law enforcement have had, there’s a range of measures that they can use, not just in removing 25,000 immigrants last year but also, importantly, making immigration raids and closing some 7,000 bank accounts so people cannot live and work in the United Kingdom once they fall off the radar.”

Further delays to deportations

The document, updated on the Home Office’s website on Monday, also acknowledges there could be further delays to deportations caused by MPs making last-minute representations to suspend removals.

There is a long-standing parliamentary convention whereby removals can be suspended until a case has been considered and a response issued to the MP.

The assessment says that given the “novel nature” of the scheme, “we may expect future (Migration and Economic Development Partnership) cases to attract significant attention from MPs, and responders may be overwhelmed by cases, causing a delay or removal to be cancelled pending a response”.

The migrants who were identified for removal to Rwanda have all previously been issued with a “notice of intent” to treat their asylum claims as inadmissible. There’s 34,113 people who have been told their claim was inadmissible.

Afghans make up the largest group with the notices, followed by Albanians, Iranians, Eritreans, Syrians, Iraqis and Sudanese. The numbers largely reflect the number of people who crossed the Channel illegally between January 2022 and June 2023.

Play The Telegraph’s brilliant range of Puzzles – and feel brighter every day. Train your brain and boost your mood with PlusWord, the Mini Crossword, the fearsome Killer Sudoku and even the classic Cryptic Crossword.