Home Office to detain asylum seekers across UK in
shock Rwanda operation
Exclusive: Operation comes weeks earlier than expected
and is thought to have been timed to coincide with local elections
Severin
Carrell, Rajeev Syal and Aletha Adu
Sun 28 Apr
2024 17.56 BST
The Home
Office will launch a major operation to detain asylum seekers across the UK on
Monday, weeks earlier than expected, in preparation for their deportation to
Rwanda, the Guardian can reveal.
Officials
plan to hold refugees who turn up for routine meetings at immigration service
offices or bail appointments and will also pick people up nationwide in a
surprise two-week exercise.
Lawyers and
campaigners said the detentions risked provoking protracted legal battles,
community protests and clashes with police – with officers in Scotland put on
high alert.
Enver
Solomon, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “The government is
determined to recklessly pursue its inhumane Rwanda plan despite the cost,
chaos and human misery it will unleash. We know it is likely to cause a
catastrophic system meltdown.”
Detainees
will be immediately transferred to detention centres, which have already been
prepared for the operation, and held until they are put on planes to Rwanda.
Some will be put on the first flight due to take off this summer.
The Home
Office said ratification of the prime minister’s Safety of Rwanda Act meant
“the government is entering the final phase of operationalising this landmark
policy to tackle illegal migration and stop the boats”.
It added:
“At some stage inevitably this will include detaining people in preparation for
the first flight, which is set to take off to Rwanda in 10 to 12 weeks. It
would be inappropriate to comment further on operational activity.”
The start
of the Home Office’s detention operation, which had not been anticipated for
weeks, coincides with Thursday’s local council elections in England where the
Tories face losing up to half the seats they currently hold.
Rishi Sunak
said on Sunday that cracking down on illegal migration was central to the Tory
campaign.
Police in
Scotland have been put on alert because of the high risk of street protests and
attempts by pro-refugee campaigners to stop detentions. Officers will not take
part in the detentions but will take charge of crowd control and public order.
A Police Scotland spokesperson referred the Guardian to the Home Office.
Local
communities in Scotland have twice prevented deportations by staging mass
protests, on Kenmure Street in Glasgow in May 2021, and in Nicolson Square,
Edinburgh, in June 2022. On both occasions, hundreds of people surrounded
immigration enforcement vehicles to prevent asylum seekers being removed.
During an
interview in which he mentioned Rwanda and illegal migration 13 times, the
prime minister said on Sunday that he was focused on “stopping the boats”, as
well as his pledges on the economy. He told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with
Trevor Phillips of his “determination to get that Rwanda scheme going”.
However,
the latest official data, released on Sunday, showed the number of people
arriving by small boats in the first four months of 2024 was the highest ever
for that period, at 7,167 people, compared with 5,745 for the same period last
year. The previous record for those four months was 6,691.
Speaking on
Monday before the Lords and Commons sat through the night to pass the safety of
Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill, Sunak said: “To detain people while we
prepare to remove them, we’ve increased detention spaces to 2,200.
“To quickly
process claims, we’ve got 200 trained, dedicated caseworkers ready and waiting.
To deal with any legal cases quickly and decisively, the judiciary have made
available 25 courtrooms and identified 150 judges who could provide over 5,000
sitting days.”
Aamer
Anwar, a Glasgow-based human rights lawyer who was directly involved in the
Kenmure Street protests, said Police Scotland and the Scottish government had
to be certain they believed this was lawful.
He revealed
he had been inundated with calls from activists after the Guardian first
reported the Home Office move on Sunday morning. “People are extremely angry
and upset, and ready to mobilise,” Anwar said, adding it would be “extremely
dangerous” for Police Scotland to put itself in the middle of a deportation
protest if people felt they were acting to protect deportation operations.
“I suspect
in the coming days we will see an explosion of the spirit of Kenmure Street
across the UK, opposing a policy that will lead to misery, self-harm and death,
driving so many more into the arms of people smugglers,” Anwar said. “The
fundamental question for the Scottish government as well as Police Scotland is
whether they are willing to engage in this barbaric abuse of power against a
desperate people.”
Solomon
said the detention and removal operations were likely to persuade other
refugees already in the UK to disappear, for fear of being deported.
“Even if a
few thousand people are removed to Rwanda this year, there will be tens of
thousands of refugees who have fled from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and
Syria, stranded in permanent limbo in the UK, likely to fall out of contact
with services and face the risk of exploitation and abuse.
“This could
be avoided if the government opted instead to operate a fair, effective and
humane asylum system.”
The Labour
MP Kim Johnson, who sits on the home affairs committee, said: “Rishi Sunak and
his government are determined to prove this scheme will work, when everyone
apart from the Tories know it is an abject failure. Detaining desperate people
who have been languishing in a state of uncertainty for far too long, and using
them for political point-scoring, is amoral. It sums up this government, and
that’s why we need a general election ASAP, to get rid once and for all.
“This
government is determined to kick the most vulnerable communities on the way out
of the door in a desperate attempt to rebuild its credibility with the
electorate.”
The Liberal
Democrat home affairs spokesperson, Alistair Carmichael, said the “cruel
political gimmick” was “the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped”.
He added:
“This is a grubby attempt by the Conservatives to distract from their appalling
record a few days out from the local elections. The Rwanda scheme is immoral,
unworkable and expensive for taxpayers.”
Sonya
Sceats, the chief executive of Freedom from Torture, a charity that supports
torture survivors, said the detentions and deportations would add to the trauma
refugees had already experienced.
“News of
this crackdown is sure to trigger mental health collapse in many men, women and
children in the care of our therapists.
“Compassionate
people up and down the country will be sickened by this performative cruelty
designed to generate headlines and stoke fear among people fleeing torture and
persecution. This is not who we are as a country.”
A Scottish
government spokesperson said: “We have been absolutely clear in our opposition
to the Rwanda bill since it was introduced. The UK should be upholding the 1951
UN refugee convention and supporting people in need of protection, not
undermining international protection.
“The UK
government should focus on improving the UK asylum system, so that people are
treated fairly and with dignity and respect throughout the process. UK
government asylum policy and legislation has a significant impact on people
living in our communities as well as on local authorities who play a critical
role in supporting asylum seekers and refugees.”
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