Government denies having lost track of likely deportees from Rwanda

Most asylum seekers initially slated for deportation to Rwanda cannot be immediately located, the Ministry of Interior has admitted.

Home Office documents show that of the 5,700 asylum seekers identified in the initial cohort, the government has lost contact with 3,557.

Only “2,143 continue to report to the Ministry of the Interior and may be located for detention,” the documents say.

A government source denied that the group was missing.

They faced looser reporting restrictions and are not being accommodated in government facilities, the source said, insisting that the Ministry of Interior could contact anyone who could be removed to Rwanda if necessary.

Many asylum seekers do not stay in Home Office accommodation and there are different ways to present themselves to the Home Office.

Some must do so in person, while others can report digitally and face less stringent requirements.

A government source admitted it was possible some could flee before being detained.

A former border force chief said asylum seekers had committed a “disappearing act” now that they faced deportation.

Kevin Saunders, former head of immigration at Border Force from 2001 to 2016, said he was “not at all surprised” that the Home Office had lost contact with asylum seekers.

Saunders told BBC Radio 4’s Today program that asylum seekers had “ignored” Rwanda’s plan until now as they were told it would never happen.

He accused the Home Office of “telling pigs” by claiming that asylum seekers are not missing.

But the fact that asylum seekers are already “disappearing” shows that Rwanda’s scheme is acting as a deterrent, he added.

Under the law, migrants without authorization to remain in the UK should only be detained if their flight is reasonably imminent.

This means that almost all those who crossed the Channel are in accommodation provided by the Home Office.

They are given a telephone number to contact authorities and instructions to report to one of 13 immigration offices or the nearest police station – but the rules are flexible.

The Home Office’s immigration reporting rulebook says asylum seekers who have “no realistic timescales” for a final decision may only need to report in person every three months. The group of people who could be sent to Rwanda should “generally” report every two weeks – but this rule does not appear to be fixed.

Last December, the Home Office separately halted a pilot scheme to track 600 asylum seekers by GPS by attaching tags to their ankles.

The UK’s data protection watchdog said the 18-month pilot scheme was unlawful.

Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said the “Home Office is used to” not being able to contact some asylum seekers.

She told Sky News: “Authorities have a variety of measures in place to find people, they will be found and removed.

“We want the message to get out loud and clear: if someone doesn’t report it as they should, they shouldn’t think they’ll get away with it.”

Labor shadow minister Stephen Kinnock said: “This latest farce exposes the total lack of control the Conservatives have over the asylum system and the chaos at the heart of their politics in Rwanda.

“The Prime Minister promised to detain and remove all those crossing the English Channel. Now he can’t even locate those slated for removal.

“How can the Conservative Home Office continue to lose so many people?”

The policy document sets out details of the 5,700 people Rwanda has already agreed “in principle” to accept. All those identified in the initial cohort arrived in the UK illegally between January 2022 and June 2023.

They had already received a “notice of intent” that their asylum claims were inadmissible and were being considered for deportation to Rwanda before the Court of Appeal ruled that the policy was unlawful on June 29, 2023.

It means that no one who arrived in a small boat since last summer will be removed on the first flights to Rwanda.

The updates, contained in an “equality impact assessment”, also raised the possibility that lobbying by MPs could delay the removal of an asylum seeker.

“It is long-standing parliamentary convention that MP representations suspend removal until a case is considered and a response is issued to the MP,” the document states.

It added that given the “innovative nature” of Rwanda’s scheme, individual cases could “attract significant attention from MPs, and responders may become overwhelmed with cases, causing a delay or removal to be canceled pending a response “.

A Home Office spokesman said social workers had been assigned to respond quickly to parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has promised these will take off by July, after legislation allowing evictions came into force last week.

The scheme is a key part of its core commitment to stop small boats crossing the English Channel.

A Home Office spokesperson added: “In preparation for flights to take off, we identified the initial group to be removed to Rwanda and have hundreds of dedicated social workers ready to process any appeals.

“It would be inappropriate to comment further on operational activity.”

The government has never estimated the total number of asylum seekers it could send, insisting the scheme has no limits.

Channel crossings continued on Monday after no migrant arrivals were detected on Sunday. More than 7,000 migrants have arrived in the UK this year to date, Home Office figures show.