1 week ago
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Just 155 migrants who crossed the Channel in small boats last year have been removed from the country, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
Ministers have repeatedly vowed tough action on those entering the UK illegally, promising they will be removed with no right to return.
But figures obtained by this newspaper under the Freedom of Information Act show only 155 of the 29,437 migrants who crossed the Channel last year – a paltry 0.5 per cent – have been removed.
Tory MPs last night blamed a barrage of legal challenges for blocking removals and said the figures showed the urgent need for the Rwanda scheme, which they hope will deter others from making the perilous crossing.
Senior Tory MP Neil O'Brien said: 'This just shows why the Rwanda scheme is so important and why we need to overhaul the system. People are able to have infinite numbers of appeals on spurious grounds.
Migrants wading out to sea to be picked up by a smuggling boat travelling to England
The government has been cracking down on illegal migrants and about 100 were rounded up in dawn raids earlier this week (pictured)
'Even when people are removed... it takes years and years to get there.
'What we need is a system where we make a very quick decision, and they know they won't get to stay if they have a spurious claim.'
The Rwanda scheme, codenamed Operation Vector, began last week, with dawn raids to round up asylum seekers who arrived in small boats.
Groups of men were seen being handcuffed before being taken to immigration removal centres, where they will be held until they can be deported to Africa.
Home Office lawyers are, however, braced for a string of legal challenges, with a leaked Government forecast predicting that 75 per cent of migrants will bring successful judicial reviews to block their removal.
Migrants can prevent their removal if they prove they face a 'real, imminent and foreseeable risk of serious and irreversible harm' in Rwanda.
A total of 711 migrants crossed the Channel last Wednesday, the most in one day so far this year.
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch, said the 2023 removal figures – obtained by the MoS from the Home Office four months after they were first requested – were 'disgraceful'.
He added: 'The small boats will not stop unless it's made clear that those crossing the Channel illegally stand little chance of being allowed to stay.'
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to abolish the Rwanda flights if his party comes to power.
But Tory MP Alexander Stafford said the scheme will 'restore confidence' in the immigration system.
The Home Office said it had already removed 26,000 people with no right to be in the UK and 'will get flights to Rwanda off the ground in nine to 11 weeks'.
