And to date he has failed miserably to do that, with numbers of people arriving to UK’s shores having steadily climbed – and of course, European and British legislation prohibit them to just send people back to whence they came from.
Sunak’s response to that was – the up until now laughable – ‘Rwanda Plan’: build and maintain migrant camps in the East African country to host thousands of ‘failed asylum seekers’.
After endless months of judicial and legislative hurdles, the Home Office has started rounding up and detaining the migrants is will send to Rwanda.
A series of dawn raids has started, with detentions starting to pile up and expectations of a long ‘season of deportation’ ahead.
The Home Office will launch more raids after up to 20 illegal migrants – including women – have already been detained and taken into custody in the UK-wide operation.
Daily Mail reported:
“The Government department has refused to release many details about the arrests, but has suggested that more raids could happen as part of the ‘large-scale operation’.”
PM Sunak wants flights to Rwanda underway in ‘the next 9 to 11 weeks’, after the ‘Safety of Rwanda Act’ finally became law last week.
But of course there are still obstacles ahead. Powerful FDA union launched a ‘judicial review’ into the Rwanda bill. It accused the government of ‘ignoring legal conflicts for civil servants’.
Home Secretary James Cleverly called the operation ‘a pioneering response to the global challenge of illegal migration’ – which it is, regardless of the outcome, since it’s almost unprecedented for European authorities to be doing something – anything – about this.
“The Home Secretary 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 operationalizing the policy, to stop the boats and break the business model of people smuggling gangs’.”
The law enforcement raids took place in England, Wales and Scotland as well as Northern Ireland. Children will not be detained as part of the operations.
“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’.”
Once the ‘Safety of Rwanda Act’ became law, it is believed that all legal objections have been overcome.
Objections about the timing of the raids are nevertheless valid, since they began less than 24 hours before polls open in elections that will be tough for the ruling Conservative Party.
Immigration is, after all, one of the top concerns of the public, alongside the economy and the state of the Health System.
“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.
[…] 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’.”
