It’s cost more than £300m and, after two years of failed attempts to get flights off the ground, has resulted in no migrants at all being forcibly sent to Rwanda. Now with the Tories flagship asylum policy “dead and buried” in the words of the Prime Minister, Home Office insiders have revealed their frustration with a scheme they regard as a “waste of time, money, and mental health”. On Saturday, Sir Keir Starmer said the plan was over “before it started” and that it had “never been a deterrent”. The deal will be scrapped by the new Labour Government and is believed to have resulted in just five failed asylum seekers travelling to the country voluntarily, having each been paid £3,000 and offered £150,000 of support with accommodation, education and other services over the next five years. The individual payments come on top of the £270m already paid into Rwanda’s “economic transformation and integration fund”, £20m for set-up costs and at least £27.8m in Home Office spending on staffing, training and legal battles. Millions more have been spent on a costly operation to detain asylum seekers for anticipated flights earlier this year, as well as work to reopen and expand immigration removal centres that would have been needed to hold asylum seekers before they were sent to Rwanda.

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU KNOW HAS BEEN DETAINED OR YOU BELIEVE THEY WILL BE DETAINED SHORTLY:

If you are being made to report Right to Remain have an action plan toolkit for BEFORE you report

If you have received a letter from the Home Office dated after March 1st that mentions Rwanda or Notice of Intent, send a photo of the letter and your full name to Care4Calais via Whatsapp at +44 751 977 3268

If you are detained you can call any of the following for legal advice:

Detention Action 0800 587 2096

Care4Calais 0800 009 6268

Soas Detainee Support 0743 840 7570

BID (Bail for Immigration Detainees) 020 7456 9750 (mon-thurs 10-12)

JCWI (Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants) 0800 160 1004 (mon, tues, thurs 10-1)

If you do not have legal representation:

Duncan Lewis are taking on cases for anyone detained for the purposes of removal to Rwanda, contact [email protected] or call 0333 772 0409

Wilson are also taking on cases, contact [email protected] or call 0208 808 7535

UK will have to pay up to around £230,000 per asylum seeker, compared to costs of £55,000 per person of pre-Rwanda system

Rwanda payments for initial cohort of 20,000 irregular arrivals could reach up to £3.9 billion

New analysis by IPPR reveals the true costs of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda to be in the billions.

The UK will have to shell out an estimated £230,000 per asylum seeker for Rwanda deportations, new research from the Institute for Public Policy Research has found. A study into the hidden costs of the Rwanda scheme shows Britain has to pay up-front fixed costs of £370 million, followed by a further £120 million once 300 people are relocated to Rwanda plus £20,000 for each person relocated as part of the Economic Transformation and Integration Fund (ETIF). In addition to this, it must pay up to £150,874 per person relocated, to cover the costs of asylum processing and integration, as well as an extra £500 for healthcare. The precise costs will vary depending on how many people relocated to Rwanda end up leaving the country within five years. For each person who leaves, the UK is expected to contribute an extra £10,000 to facilitate their departure but otherwise stops their ongoing payments.

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