The Home Office is poised to launch more raids in a bid to round up migrants it wants to deport to Rwanda after a series of dawn arrests this week.
Up to 20 illegal migrants were detained in the UK-wide operation, which saw immigration officials take people, including women, into custody.
The Government department has refused to release many details about the arrests, but has suggested that more raids could happen as part of the ‘large-scale operation’.
It said that it intends to get planes to the east African country underway in ‘the next 9 to 11 weeks’, after the Safety of Rwanda Act became law last week following a troubled journey through Parliament.
James Cleverly has hailed the start of the operation as ‘a pioneering response to the global challenge of illegal migration’.
The Home Office is poised to launch more raids in a bid to round up migrants it wants to deport to Rwanda after a series of dawn arrests this week
Up to 20 illegal migrants were detained in the UK-wide operation, which saw immigration officials take people, including women, into custody
The Home Secretary said: ‘Our Rwanda Partnership is a pioneering response to the global challenge of illegal migration, and we have worked tirelessly to introduce new, robust legislation to deliver it.
‘Our dedicated enforcement teams are working at pace to swiftly detain those who have no right to be here so we can get flights off the ground.
‘This is a complex piece of work, but we remain absolutely committed to operationalising the policy, to stop the boats and break the business model of people smuggling gangs.’
Enforcement action is said to have taken place throughout the UK – in England, Wales and Scotland as well as Northern Ireland – since midday on Monday.
Children are not expected to be detained as part of the operations.
Home Office Director of Enforcement Eddy Montgomery said: ‘Our specialist operational teams are highly trained and fully equipped to carry out the necessary enforcement activity at pace and in the safest way possible.
‘It is vital that operational detail is kept to a minimum, to protect colleagues involved and those being detained, as well as ensuring we can deliver this large-scale operation as quickly as possible.’
It is not known at this stage how many people have been held in total.
The Safety of Rwanda Act became law on April 25 and, along with a new treaty with Rwanda, ministers believe they have overcome legal objections raised about the policy by the Supreme Court last November.
The Government department has refused to release many details about the arrests, but has suggested that more raids could happen
A group of people thought to be migrants crossing the Channel in a small boat in August 2023
More than 7,000 migrants have already crossed the Channel so far this year in small boats
However, questions have been raised about the timing of the raids, which were carried out less than 24 hours before polls open in elections expected to prove difficult for the Tories.
Immigration is one of the top concerns of the public, alongside the economy and the state of the NHS, opinion polls have consistently shown.
Millions of people will vote tomorrow for local councillors, elected mayors and police and crime commissioners (PCCs), and there is also a Westminster by-election in Blackpool South.
The Conservatives are expected to lose that by-election and hundreds of seats on councils, with a Labour source saying: ‘Is there any more blatant sign that [former immigration minister Robert] Jenrick was right about this all being symbolic before an election than this mad flurry of stories?’
The Home Office has increased its detention capacity to more than 2,200 detention spaces, trained 200 new caseworkers to quickly process claims and has 500 highly trained escorts ready.
Downing Street said: ‘The next stage of Prime Minister’s plan to stop the boats has begun.
‘We’re working at home and abroad to deliver on this priority.’
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, added: ‘The Rwanda plan has taken a deeply cynical headline grabbing turn.
The action is a part of the plan to deliver flights to Rwanda in the next nine to 11 weeks. Pictured: A flight to Rwanda in 2022
Last year, there were 67,337 asylum applications to the UK. Of those, 29,437 came from people who arrived in small boats. The Government claims the Rwanda scheme will act as a deterrent, however it only has the capacity to send 200 people a year to the East African country
The Hope Hostel in Rwanda (pictured) is one of the locations migrants will be sent to
‘The plan was always deeply immoral and coming at eye watering cost to the taxpayer, no amount of flashy PR will change that.
‘This propaganda push, rushed out on the eve of the local elections, is a new low even for this government.
‘Time and time again we have seen this immoral and expensive policy fail, a scrambled PR push won’t change that.’
Downing Street denied that the decision to detain asylum seekers today was connected to tomorrow’s votes, with the PM’s press secretary telling journalists, ‘There isn’t really a day to lose when people are dying in the Channel having been induced into boats by gangs’.