Thousands of migrants due to be deported to Rwanda ‘have gone to Ireland’: Home Office admits more than half of asylum seekers earmarked for deportation are missing – as Tories decry ‘squeaking’ from Dublin

The Home Office has admitted it has lost contact with thousands of migrants due to be deported to Rwanda – with claims they could have fled to Ireland.

An internal document shows that officials are in contact with only 2,143 of the 5,700 people who will fly on the first flights to the African state.

Ministers insisted that asylum seekers will be located as the policy moves closer to implementation.

But Labor branded the situation a “farce” and said it exposed the government’s “complete lack of control” over the asylum system.

Experts suggested that many of the missing persons had committed an ‘act of disappearance’ because they did not want to be sent to Rwanda. Kevin Saunders, former chief immigration officer at Border Force, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: They will not appear, at least not in Britain. They will probably turn up in Ireland.’

The figures could spark an increasingly bitter row after Dublin complained that large numbers of migrants are crossing the invisible border into Northern Ireland.

Britain has rejected the Republic’s attempts to pass new laws to allow it to send back asylum seekers.

The Tories have made it clear that Ireland is ‘hypocritical’ and ‘screaming’ after condemning British attempts to strike a deportation deal with Rwanda.

In a round of interviews this morning, Health Minister Victoria Atkins told Sky News that the Home Office was “used to this” and that law enforcement agencies had “a range of measures” to track down and remove people who did not report as required.

She said: ‘We want the message to come through loud and clear: if someone doesn’t come forward as they should, they shouldn’t think they can get away with it. They will be found.”

The figures come from an impact assessment of the government’s Migration and Economic Development Partnership with Rwanda, which has seen Britain agree to pay Kigali to accommodate asylum seekers who crossed the Channel in small boats.

The document, updated yesterday on the Home Office website, also acknowledges that there could be further delays in deportations caused by last-minute protests from MPs to suspend the removals.

There has long been a parliamentary convention under which removals can be suspended until a matter has been considered and a response given to the MP.

The assessment found that, given the ‘new nature’ of the scheme, ‘we should expect that future (Migration and Economic Development Partnership) cases will attract significant attention from MPs, and that aid workers may be overwhelmed with cases, causing a delay or deletion is cancelled. awaiting a response’.

It appears to be the latest in a series of setbacks in the government’s stalled plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda, which was announced two years ago but has not yet seen a flight take off.

A Home Office spokesperson said: ‘As the Prime Minister has made clear, flights to Rwanda will be launched in the next ten to twelve weeks.

‘In preparation for the flights to start, we have identified the first cohort to be transferred to Rwanda and have hundreds of dedicated case workers ready to process any appeals.’

The department has also insisted that it maintains contact with asylum seekers through multiple avenues and not just through personal reporting.

Mr Saunders said the figures “don’t surprise me at all”.

“What happened was that the Ministry of Interior informed people who arrived between January 2022 and June 2023 that they were potentially liable for removal to Rwanda,” he said.

‘The migrants ignored this because they were told this would never happen and it was just a bit stupid, forget it.

“Now that they have the new Rwanda law on the table, they are very concerned… very concerned that they will be removed, so they have committed an act of disappearance.

Mr Saunders added: “They are people they have lost touch with. They won’t appear, and certainly not in Britain. They will probably turn up in Ireland.

“But they know they are in the frame that needs to be removed, they don’t want to be removed, so they will disappear.”

‘We know it will work because people are already disappearing.

‘They don’t want to go to Rwanda… first to Ireland and disappear into the unregulated economy.

“I would detain everyone who arrives… that’s the only way to do it.”

Shadow Immigration Minister Stephen Kinnock said: ‘The Prime Minister promised to arrest and remove anyone crossing the Channel. Now he can’t even locate the items intended for disposal.

‘How can the conservative Home Office continue to lose so many people?’

Rishi Sunak has flatly rejected the idea of ​​accepting asylum seekers back from Ireland.

The Prime Minister said yesterday he was ‘not interested’ in a return deal if the European Union did not allow Britain to send back asylum seekers who had crossed the Channel from France.

Dublin has claimed that the number of asylum seekers crossing from Northern Ireland now “exceeds 80 percent” of the Irish total, following a shift in migration patterns in recent months.

The issue was discussed by the British and Irish governments during high-level talks in London on Monday.

Ireland has proposed new legislation to make it easier to send migrants to Britain, effectively overturning an Irish Supreme Court ruling that Britain is no longer a ‘safe third country’ for the return of asylum seekers.

At a joint press conference in Westminster, Northern Ireland minister Chris Heaton-Harris and Irish Deputy Prime Minister Michael Martin sought to play down any divisions over the issue.

Mr Heaton-Harris said: ‘Britain’s new deterrent is clearly working and is already having some impact. An impact that will of course become even greater as the first flights depart for Rwanda.

“We will of course be monitoring all of this closely and continuing to work with the Irish government on these matters.”

Mr Heaton-Harris said there was ‘no disruption to our relationship with Ireland’.

There is a “joint commitment to protect the common travel area from misuse,” he added.

The minister said that while the deterrent effect was expected, “we are somewhat surprised that this manifested itself so quickly after the law came into force.”

But Tory MP Mark Francois told GB News that Ireland had been ‘lifted by their own petard’.

“The stench of hypocrisy about this is worse than a ten-year-old pint of Guinness that has been drunk,” he said. ‘I remember all the time what I call the Battle for Brexit in the House of Commons, which was told to me night after night, week after week, including by people who quoted the Irish government and then saw it in clips from Dublin – No Hard Border the island of Ireland under any circumstances.

‘Completely free movement across that border. And there was a loophole known as the Dublin Convention.

“So to now have the Irish government shouting that these rules are against their national interest, when they are the people who have been advocating for them for years, is beyond imagination.”