The first migrants set to be deported to Rwanda have been detained.
The Home Office said a series of operations took place across the country this week, with more activity due to be carried out in the coming weeks.
Officials have not yet said how many people have been detained, or where they were taken into custody.
It comes ahead of the Government’s bid to get flights to send migrants to the east African nation off the ground by July, after the Safety of Rwanda Act became law last week.
In one video, a team of about six officials – all thought to be from the Home Office’s Immigration Enforcement unit – arrive at a terraced house and enter through the front door.
The first illegal migrants set to be removed to Rwanda have now been detained, following a series of nationwide operations this week
Officials have not yet said how many people have been detained, or where they were taken into custody
More than 7,000 migrants have already crossed the Channel so far this year in small boats
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 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
A female officer is then seen opening an internal door and announcing: ‘Immigration.’
A man dressed in dark-checked trousers and a light-coloured hoodie then walks out of the bay-fronted house and steps into the rear of a detention vehicle.
A security grille is then locked behind him.
In a second sequence, officers arrive at another terraced house and then leave with a bearded young man dressed in black trousers and a black hoodie.
The man walks out of the white-rendered property with his hands handcuffed in front of him, and is placed in a van.
The faces of both men were obscured in the videos and the locations of the detentions have not been disclosed.
It is not known at this stage how many people have been held in total.
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.’
Home Secretary James Cleverly 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.’
Operational teams within the Home Office have been working at pace to safely and swiftly detain individuals in scope for relocation to Rwanda.
More activity due to be carried out in the coming weeks.
The action is a part of the plan to deliver flights to Rwanda in the next nine to 11 weeks.
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.’
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.
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’
One official was seen with a handheld battering ram on one of the raids
Immigration officials ushered migrants into caged vans ahead of their flights to Rwanda
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
he Home office said Rwanda has proven its ability to offer asylum seekers a chance to build new and prosperous lives with accommodation, education, training and employment
It said the country has a strong and successful track record in resettling people, hosting more than 135,000 refugees, and stands ready to accept thousands more who cannot stay in the UK
Mr Cleverly said last week that a series of commercial charter flights have already been booked, and an airport has been put on standby, though to be the Ministry of Defence base Boscombe Down, near Salisbury, Wilts.
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.
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?’
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, added: ‘The Rwanda plan has taken a deeply cynical headline grabbing turn.
‘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’.
The first asylum seeker has been deported to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak ‘s migrant crackdown
The Hope Hostel in Rwanda (pictured) is one of the locations migrants will be sent to
Rishi Sunak wants to relocate thousands of failed asylum seeker to the third country
The Home Office confirmed there were 268 arrivals across the Channel by small boat yesterday.
It meant the number of migrants arriving in the UK after crossing the Channel has hit a new record high for the first four months of a calendar year, jumping 27 per cent on 2023’s total for the same period of 5,946 to 7,567.
It is an increase of 13 per cent compared to figures logged for the same period in 2022 (6,691).
Since the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act became law after receiving Royal Assent on Thursday, 900 migrants have made the journey in 18 boats.
This includes 268 people who arrived in the UK in five boats on Tuesday. Crossings continued on Wednesday.
Some 2,132 people made the journey in 42 boats in April, suggesting an average of 51 people per boat last month.
This is higher than the average for March – 48 people per boat – but lower than the peak of 56 people per boat in September 2023.
The figures come as the National Crime Agency (NCA) said a fourth man had been arrested on suspicion of immigration offences after five migrants died last week while trying to cross the Channel.
Dozens more migrants were intercepted in the Channel today by UK Border Force and brought to Dover.
The Home office said Rwanda has proven its ability to offer asylum seekers a chance to build new and prosperous lives with accommodation, education, training and employment.
It said the country has a strong and successful track record in resettling people, hosting more than 135,000 refugees, and stands ready to accept thousands more who cannot stay in the UK.
Officials said the government’s Safety of Rwanda Act and internationally binding Treaty reaffirm and ensure the safety of Rwanda and this policy.
The Treaty responded to the Supreme Court’s findings in December by strengthening Rwanda’s asylum system to ensure no one will be returned to an unsafe country after relocation.
It came as the first asylum seeker was deported to Rwanda under Rishi Sunak’s migrant crackdown on Monday evening.
The migrant, whose name is unknown, was flown out of the UK to Kigali. He was put on a commercial flight and given around £3,000 from the British taxpayer to help relocate under the terms of a deal with Rwanda.
It marks the first time the government has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country.
The man’s attempt to stay in Britain was rejected at the end of 2023, before he accepted the offer to start a new life in the central African nation.
In March, The Home Office confirmed the voluntary relocation plan for those found in Britain without the right to be here.
In 2023, 19,000 failed asylum seekers were voluntarily taken out of the UK, after being told they would never be granted the rights of legal migrants.
The Home Office currently gives those seeking asylum somewhere to live and a £49 a week allowance
Mr Sunak yesterday declared he is ‘not interested’ in taking back migrants from Ireland
There are still tens of thousands of migrants in the system who cannot be sent back to their home countries.
Ministers said it is cheaper to send migrants to Rwanda than to support them in Britain, even after giving them money and flights.
Bungling Home Office officials reportedly admitted they can’t find thousands of migrants who are set to be deported to Rwanda, it was reported yesterday.
An updated document assessing the impact of the partnership with the east African country states that Rwanda has agreed to accept 5,700 people.
But in an embarrassing admission by the Home Secretary James Cleverly’s department, it says only 2,143 continue to report and their whereabouts are known.
Sources admitted to The Times that there was significant risk that they could have absconded now that the deportation bill has passed through Parliament.
However, the Home Office has said that the remaining 3,557 people may not have absconded but are not subject to reporting restrictions.
The Home Office currently gives those seeking asylum somewhere to live and a £49 a week allowance, for each person in a household, to pay for food and clothes.
Those who are being detained have all arrived in the UK illegally between January 2022 and June 2023 – according to the Migrant and Economic Development Partnership document – mainly by small boat Channel crossings.
The document stated: ‘Of the 5,700 people Rwanda has in principle agreed to accept, 2,143 continue to report to the Home Office and can be located for detention.’
Where will migrants go once they arrive in Rwanda?
BY IWAN STONE
A plant-lined Rwandan hostel complete with a football pitch and basketball court will greet illegal migrants when they land from the UK.
The refurbished Hope Hostel, in the African country’s capital Kigali, is one of the places migrants are set to be deported to.
Photos of Hope Hostel present a plush hotel reached by a road lined with towering palm trees and closely pruned, bright green turf.
The refurbished Hope Hostel, in the African country’s capital Kilgali, is one of the places migrants are set to be deported to after the Rwanda bill
Photos of Hope Hostel present a plush hotel reached by a road lined with towering palm trees and closely pruned, bright green turf
Migrants can expect high-quality facilities after leaving the UK – with a floodlit football pitch allowing for an energetic escape at all hours
They can even stretch their limbs in other kitted-out arenas – with one multi-purpose pitch allowing for volleyball and basketball amongst other persuits.
Meals will be prepared in the hostel’s main kitchen but provisions are also being made for those who want to prepare their own meals
The management at the four-story Hope Hostel says the facility is ready and can accommodate 100 people at full capacity
Based in the vibrant upscale neighborhood of Kagugu, it is situated close to many expats and several international schools.
The management at the four-story Hope Hostel says the facility is ready and can accommodate 100 people at full capacity. The government says it will serve as a transit center and that more accommodations would be made available as needed.
After they arrive from Britain, the migrants will be shown to their rooms to rest, after which they will be offered food and given some orientation points about Kigali and Rwanda, said hostel manager Ismael Bakina.
Tents will be set up within the hostel’s compound for processing their documentation and for various briefings. The site is equipped with security cameras, visible across the compound.
Meals will be prepared in the hostel’s main kitchen but provisions are also being made for those who want to prepare their own meals, he said. The migrants will be free to walk outside the hostel and even visit the nearby Kigali city center.
‘We will have different translators, according to (their) languages,’ Bakina added, saying they include English and Arabic.
Inside, photos show a bright and warm block of rooms where corridors are lined with healthy and colourful plants, with neatly kept pathways and open spaces.
Looking through the windows, visitors are greeted with a sea of green, with vibrant vegetation lining the complex.
The government says the hostel will serve as a transit center and that more accommodations would be made available as needed
Images also show space for large-scale talks, with tables and chairs set out for a panel and audience
A further medical bay shows a blue-cushioned bed in an airconditioned room
The site is equipped with security cameras, visible across the compound
Inside the rooms – some of which house two double beds – luxurious mattresses are fitted with neatly tucked-in white sheets and bedside tables.
And migrants can expect high-quality facilities after leaving the UK – with a floodlit football pitch allowing for an energetic escape at all hours.
They can even stretch their limbs in other kitted-out arenas – with one multi-purpose pitch allowing for volleyball and basketball amongst other pursuits.
There is also a red-carpeted prayer room. For those who want to light up, ‘there is even a smoking room,’ Bakina explained.
Images also show space for large-scale talks, with tables and chairs set out for a panel and audience.
A further medical bay shows a blue-cushioned bed in an airconditioned room.
Further rooms with desks, roller chairs and even computers allow visitors access to work spaces.
The hostel once housed college students whose parents died in the 1994 genocide, when an estimated 800,000 Tutsi were killed by extremist Hutu in massacres that lasted more than 100 days.
Rooms with desks, roller chairs and even computers allow visitors access to work spaces
Computers are available for migrants wanting to scour the net
Inside the rooms – some of which house two double beds – luxurious matresses are fitted with neatly tucked-in white sheets and bedside tables
The hostel once housed college students whose parents died in the 1994 genocide
Rwanda government’s deputy spokesperson Alain Mukuralinda said that authorities here have been planning for the migrants’ arrival for two years
The government has said the migrants will have their papers processed within the first three months. Pictured: Bathrooms in the hostel
While in Rwanda, migrants who obtain legal status – presumably for Britain – will also be processed, authorities have said, though it’s unclear what that means exactly. Pictured: Showers in the hostel
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