SKY NEWS
More than half of the asylum seekers allocated for removal to Rwanda cannot be found by the Home Office, according to the government’s own impact assessment.
Almost six thousand people were due to be issued a “Notice of Intent” that their asylum claim was inadmissible, but just over two thousand are able to be tracked down.
The Home Office claims in a new document that the government of Rwanda has agreed “in principle” to accept 5,700 asylum seekers from the UK, but admits only 2,143 attend regular check-ins and “can be located for detention”.
It is unclear whether the 3,557 missing asylum seekers have gone underground to avoid deportation or are victims of administrative errors caused by moving between different taxpayer-funded accommodations.
Only asylum seekers who arrived between 1 July 2022 and 29 June 2023, and who already received a letter telling them about the Rwanda plan are in this group.
The first flights are planned for this July, which indicates no one who arrived in Britain on a small boat during the previous year will be onboard.
The policy document also notes that there is likely to be “significant attention from MPs” over individual cases and Home Office staff “may be overwhelmed”.
It warns that this might result in “delay or removal to be cancelled pending a response”.
Members of Parliament are normally able to suspend deportation until they receive a reply to their queries over a case.
