Second asylum-seeker is flown to Rwanda on a commercial flight and given £3,000 in taxpayer cash to leave the UK under Rishi Sunak's migrant crackdown

A second failed asylum seeker has been paid £3,000 to be relocated to Rwanda with another set to follow this week.

The unnamed migrant had their bid for asylum rejected and left Britain on a commercial flight in recent days.

This marks only the second time the government has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country that they have no links with.

The £3,000 payment is part of a voluntary programme that saw the first person fly to Kigali in April.

It is separate from the Rwanda scheme to forcibly relocate small boat migrants, which remains mired in uncertainty given Labour's pledge to axe it if Sir Keir Starmer wins the general election.

An overloaded dinghy of migrants crossing the Channel to the UK in April

In March, the Home Office confirmed the voluntary relocation plan to Rwanda was open to anyone caught in Britain with no right to be here.

News of the second departure was reported by The Sun.

The Home Office is refusing to comment on immigration policy due to  'purdah' rules around the election.

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A source told MailOnline: 'We will not be providing updates on the uptake of our voluntary route to Rwanda during the pre-election period'.

In 2023, 19,000 failed asylum seekers left the UK voluntarily after being told they would never be granted the rights of legal migrants.

But there are still tens of thousands of migrants in the system who cannot be sent back to their home countries.

The Rwanda scheme, first proposed in 2022, will see illegal immigrants forcibly relocated to the central African nation for processing, asylum and settlement.

Mr Sunak said he believed the first flight carrying illegal immigrants to Rwanda would take place on July 24, nearly three weeks after the general election.

But Sir Keir Starmer, whose party is the firm favourite to win the election, has vowed to abolish it altogether.

Money due to be spent on the programme to remove illegal migrants – including those who arrive by small boat across the Channel – would instead be used to fund a new Border Security Command, the party's manifesto states.

Hope Hostel in Kigali, which would receive migrants from the UK under the Rwanda scheme

The manifesto says the unit will feature 'hundreds of new investigators, intelligence officers, and cross-border police officers' and puts the cost at £75million a year.

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The new organisation would use 'counter-terrorism style powers' to combat people traffickers, Labour says.

Sir Keir's party would seek a new 'security agreement' with the European Union to allow closer working.

The manifesto gives no detail of how that would work, or what Labour would be prepared to give Brussels in exchange.

There would also be reforms to the way the asylum system operates.

A new 'returns and enforcement unit' would be set up with an additional 1,000 staff, to 'fast-track removals to safe countries'.

The document does not explain how the new unit would overcome long-standing legal hurdles which can block the removal of failed asylum seekers, such as the European Convention on Human Rights.

The interior of the building's central lobby. Labour has vowed to axe the Rwanda scheme altogether

However, it suggests the party would negotiate additional returns agreements with other countries to speed up the process.

The manifesto also pledges to hire additional caseworkers to clear the asylum backlog and get migrants out of taxpayer-funded hotel accommodation.

Because the manifesto gives no detail of how this would be achieved, it opens the prospect of asylum criteria being weakened, as under previous backlog-clearing exercises.

Labour's manifesto says it will 'restore order to the asylum system so that it operates swiftly, firmly, and fairly; and the rules are properly enforced'.

On legal migration Labour pledges to cut net migration, but does not say by how much. Workforce training plans would reduce reliance on foreign workers, it says, and there would be crackdowns on firms abusing visas.