Thousands of migrants set to be deported to Rwanda 'gone to Ireland'

• Rwanda has agreed to accept 5,700 people, but only 2,143 continue to report

The Home Office has admitted losing contact with thousands of migrants set to be deported to Rwanda – with claims they could have fled to Ireland.

An internal document revealed that officials are only in touch with 2,143 of the 5,700 people earmarked to be on the first flights to the African state.

Ministers insisted the asylum seekers will be located as the policy comes closer to being implemented.

But Labour branded the situation a ‘farce’ saying it exposed the ‘total lack of grip’ the government had on the asylum system.

Experts suggested many of the missing individuals had done a ‘disappearing act’ because they did not want to be sent to Rwanda.  Kevin Saunders, a former chief immigration officer at Border Force, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: They are not going to appear, or certainly not in the UK. They will probably turn up in Ireland.’

The figures could fuel an increasingly bitter spat after Dublin complained that large numbers of migrants are crossing the invisible border with Northern Ireland.

The UK has dismissed efforts by the Republic to pass new laws so they can send asylum seekers back.

Tories have swiped that Ireland is being ‘hypocritical’ and ‘squealing’ after condemning Britain’s efforts to strike a deportation deal with Rwanda.

Bungling Home Office officials have admitted they can’t find thousands of migrants who are set to be deported to Rwanda (Pictured: Migrants cross the Channel on a small boat in March)

In an updated document which assesses the impact of the partnership with the east African country, it states that Rwanda has agreed to accept 5,700 people – but only 2,143 of those 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 law enforcement agencies had ‘a range of measures’ to find and remove people who were not reporting as required.

She said: ‘We want the message to go out loud and clear that if somebody doesn’t report as they should do, they shouldn’t think that they’ll get away with it. They will be found.’

The figures come from an impact assessment of the Government’s Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda, under which the UK has agreed to pay Kigali to take asylum seekers who have crossed the Channel in small boats.

The document, updated on the Home Office’s website yesterday, 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’.

It appears to be the latest in a series of setbacks to the Government’s stalled scheme to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was announced two years ago but has yet to see a flight take off.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘As the Prime Minister has made clear, we will get flights off the ground to Rwanda in the next 10 to 12 weeks.

‘In preparation for flights taking off, we have identified the initial cohort to be removed to Rwanda and have hundreds of dedicated caseworkers ready to process any appeals.’

The department has also insisted that it keeps in contact with asylum seekers through multiple avenues and not just face-to-face reporting.

Mr Saunders said the figures ‘don’t surprise me in the slightest’.

‘What happened was the Home Office notified people who arrived between January 2022 and June 2023 that they may be liable for removal to Rwanda,’ he said.

‘The migrants ignored this because they were told this was never going to happen and it was just a bit silly, forget all about it.

‘Now they have the new Rwanda Act on the table they are worried… very much so, that they are going to be removed, so they have done a disappearing act.

Mr Saunders added: ‘It’s people that they have lost contact with. They are not going to appear, or certainly not in the UK. They will probably turn up in Ireland.

‘But they know that they are in the frame to be removed, they don’t want to be removed, so they are going to disappear.’

‘We know it will work because people are disappearing already.

‘They don’t want to go to Rwanda… going to Ireland first of all, disappearing into the unregulated economy.

‘I would detain everybody who arrives… it’s the only way to do it.’

Shadow immigration minister Stephen Kinnock said: ‘The Prime Minister promised to detain and remove all those who crossed the Channel. Now he can’t even locate those intended for removal.

‘How can the Conservative Home Office keep losing so many people?’

Rishi Sunak has flatly rejected the idea of accepting asylum seekers back from Ireland.

The PM said yesterday he was ‘not interested’ in a returns deal if the European Union did not allow the UK to send back asylum seekers who had crossed the Channel from France.

Dublin has claimed the number of asylum seekers crossing from Northern Ireland is now ‘higher than 80 per cent’ of Ireland’s overall total due to a shift 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 reversing an Irish High Court ruling that the UK is no longer a ‘safe third country’ for returning asylum seekers because of the Rwanda plan.

At a joint press conference in Westminster, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and Irish deputy premier Micheal Martin sought to play down any rift over the issue.

Mr Heaton-Harris said: ‘The UK’s new deterrent is clearly working and having some impact already. An impact that will obviously increase as the first flights take off for Rwanda.

‘We will obviously monitor all this very closely and continue to work with the Irish Government on these matters.’

Mr Heaton-Harris said there is ‘no way that we would want to upset our relationship with Ireland’.

There is a ‘joint commitment to protect the common travel area from abuse’, he added.

The Cabinet minister said that while the deterrent effect was anticipated, ‘we are slightly surprised that it manifested itself so quickly after the Act became law’.

But Tory MP Mark Francois told GB News Ireland had been ‘hoist by their own petard’.

‘The stench of hypocrisy over this is worse than a 10-year-old pint of Guinness that’s gone off,’ he said. ‘I remember all the way through what I call the Battle of Brexit in the House of Commons, being told night after night, week after week, including by people quoting the Irish government and then seeing it in clips from Dublin – No hard border on the island of Ireland under any circumstances.

‘Complete free movement across that border. And there was a loophole, which was known as the Dublin Convention.

‘So now to have the Irish government squealing that these rules are against their national interest when they are the people that argued for them for years, you couldn’t make it up.’