‘People will be handcuffed’: how the UK will get illegal migrants out to Rwanda

They are not going to beat them or anything like that, they

will

physically restrain them with the use of handcuffs. Kevin between 10 and 20 really isn't much, but should we go with that and use it as a marker of success for this plan, I mean this has to start somewhere, yes I mean the enforcement

people

the law started yesterday, I don't have the exact numbers, but I understand that a significant number have been detained, but it's the first few days and um, so this is only the second day, so if your figure of 20 is correct, I think which is a good platform, although problems are looming because the Times reports this figure between 10 and 20 and uh also.

It has been identified where these individuals have been detained and it is in places where it is easy to find them, so that is when they have gone where they must report to get their weekly allowance, uh or are they simply

people

who The head office has already stayed in hotels so they know where they are. The big problem is finding all these other people and we already know that two and a half thousand people who could be on this list have simply disappeared in our society, no. Sorry, I have to correct it. Nobody has disappeared.

This is a mistake. The times they were committed was yesterday. 5,700 people were told they were responsible for deportation because their claims were inadmissible. That group was then subdivided into Group A, which was 2000, and Group B, which was 3700, now the Border Force have only really concentrated on Group A the first 2000 and all of those people are incredibly monitored, they are all under immigration bond and my sources tell me that the Home Office I know exactly where everyone is so it's a bit of a wrong story um this one forgets the people in group B for the moment they have no real interest it's Well then why don't they have any real interest? just a group that the head office

will

then reach are not people who have been lost in a system no, they have not been lost in the system at all, they will eventually arrive, but not yet and We want to stop the people we want to transfer to Rwanda, So you cannot detain 5,000 700 people, that is not possible, that is why they subdivided the groups into two and then they go after the first group and will detain as many people as they want for expulsion.

Okay, good to have clarified it with your experience. The next question, which requires your experience as well. Kevin is about what these people are like who then get arrested. treated and then taken to wherever they are going to leave this country and then be processed to Rwanda so the central office has increased the care capacity to more than 2,200 places and has 500 highly trained escorts ready, which seems like a Lots of escorts for me, but maybe it's not enough, what do you think? Well, let's assume, for the sake of argument, that a flight out of the UK will have a capacity of, say, 300 people, which will be 100 im

migrants

and 200 detention officers because the Home Office are going to play it safe and they are going to sending two detention officers with each person to be removed and this seems very sensible to me because we want to make sure that everyone on that plane is safe and that they arrive in Ru Rwanda safely and embark and disembark safely now, unfortunately, Some people will find it difficult to leave and unfortunately force may have to be used, but these detention officers are very good, they do this kind of thing all the time, so they're very used to it and they act very professionally and they don't should be a problem at all.

What is the UL strength level that can be used in that situation? People will be

handcuffed

and that's the most. What an escort officer can do, they, yes, they can, I mean, they're not going to beat them or anything like that, they're going to physically restrain them by using handcuffs, right at the point of that balance between the number of escorts and the number of detainees 500 is actually not a lot, okay? If it is, it depends on how many planes you are going to send at one time, so if sending one plane I don't know one plane per day then um then then it would be more that enough um if you send two planes a day it won't be enough but we will have to wait and see how many planes are going to take off at any moment, so as a sign of the real number of people who would be expelled from this country, Kevin, the other point of This policy is the message it sends to the criminal gangs who are taking so much. a lot of money from vulnerable people and we know the tragedy that can come from that, so you've met a lot of people who want to come live in this country.

Do you really think that this policy is going to send a enough message to the gangs that are really controlling this business right now, well the gangs are controlling everything at the moment they are controlling the amount of information that

migrants

get because they are told that nothing is going to happen, uh, everything, um. it's just going to be hidden under the counter uh it's pretty safe to go to the UK no one is ever going to be expelled and it won't happen to them which is unfortunate because these people are being fooled, at least maybe until we have a general election , um, that's unfortunate, but I know that there is a feeling in the north of France among immigrants that they are worried because they hear that those people are going to be expelled and once the planes actually take off, that will be It's very visual, it's very visual to see a plane take off and if you can see a plane take off, you see a plane take off and they tell you there are immigrants on it, then people who want to come to the UK will see that. is happening in reality, but let's put ourselves in the mind of someone who has made a presumably very dangerous journey from a remote location and fears for their life or whatever, or who simply wants to come to a different country to You will have a better economic future if You've made that journey and come as far as Cal.

Do you really, if you see a photo of a plane taking off, will you be able to piece together that policy and that deterrent or do you really think you know what I am? I'm going to pay this guy $4,000 or whatever horrendous amount of money. I'm just going to take a chance that maybe I won't be the one who ends up on that plane. Well, that is the balance, that is the risk that they will have to face. consider taking now the front office can play this very well in your favor because if people do that and they get eliminated very, very quickly, that sends an even bigger message, so that means that if they get eliminated, your teammates will be as blinded.

He only crossed the other day and is already on a plane to Rwanda, so that would be a great deterrent. Kevin, it's good talking to you, thank you very much. Kevin Saunders is the former head of immigration for UK IM. The junta hits a lot of dongs in the house and the government tries everything possible to make a good impression with its Rwanda deportation policy. Yes, that's right, I think you know there was a lot of back and forth on immigration today and there will be in the next few days because, as you mentioned, we're going into those local elections and it's one of the issues that the Conservative party really wants to talk about and if If you think back over the last week, there are a number of pretty shocking policies that the Conservatives have announced, perhaps with the aim of showing that Rishi Sinak, the Prime Minister, is doing something and is delivering something that those toys that are on the market Around the corner they will be eager to repeat, but I have to say what really interests me. today is that after the Prime Minister's questions we always receive a briefing with both parties in the government and the Labor party and it is really still not clear to me how Labor is going to approach this Rwanda plan if it comes to government, we know that K Armor has promised that he will remove it and has reaffirmed that he will remove it even though the country was informed yesterday, but there is a much bigger question about what is happening to all those people who are in hotels across the country right now or who they are detained if they are not going to be sent to Rwanda.

I think at the end of the day today we finally get to the bottom of the fact that the workers are saying that they will be allowed to apply for asylum if they have the right to do so. Obviously, the government does not allow people who came here

illegal

ly to do so, but I think that That opens up another question about what happens to them in the meantime and what happens to the hotel bill, which is currently quite high and is likely to remain. is going up, so the questions seem to be lurking for manpower, while the test of the policy itself is how many, how many asylum seekers can be flown to rander, how many will stay there and whether it will be a deterrent Will it stop the boats, which is the Prime Minister's latest promise, yes, that is the absolute test of this policy, whether it works or not, and just in the last few months we have seen more people arriving here in small boats as the plan for Rwanda it has passed through Parliament. who arrived here last year, so just from the numbers it seems that there are still people arriving here, but on the edges we are starting to see conversations of some people, for example, who are going to Ireland to avoid being deported to Rwanda and the government says that they know that they are seeing a change in behavior and that, in fact, the number of people who now come here through the channel are from Vietnam and that, unfortunately, they are often prayed for by human traffickers because they are from other countries. places and the government has a plan in It's a good place to try to prevent that from happening, but you're right, the test will be whether this policy stops the boats.

I received information from headquarters today, right in the early stages of that operation, it's called operation Vector. this plan to deport people to detain people and then deport people yes, it won't say right now how many people have been detained so far or how many are in the first cohort that the government is going around and kicking down doors today and the rest of this week there are 800 officers working on that plan, which is a pretty significant number, so we have to think it could be hundreds, but at the moment we don't have a firm number of how many have been detained yet, let's say hello, welcome to the show now to Kevin Foster, Conservative MP, a former immigration minister, welcome to you Kevin, good evening John, hello, an asylum seeker has volunteered to fly to Randa with a check for £3,000 of taxpayers' money in his pocket, what does that prove?

It proves that we now have a different way of doing voluntary returns and for those listening, we have actually had a vol returns system for a long period of time, but as math pointed out, this is the first time anyone has gone to return to a third country, but instead of returning to their country of origin, but generally under that scheme is where people have been rejected, they do not have a status to be here, they accept the point that they now need to leave and it has been a way where the government can support them to leave, rather than just being able to expel people through the forced process, then potentially, for example, they have to use charter planes, other things, so while money is usually paid as part of that is usually done in a way to literally make it easier to leave the country and very basic living expenses when someone arrives, rather than just having to put them through the whole deportation process and get them to a good but safe state.

Kevin voluntary resettlement volunteers with 3,000 checks in their wallets with taxpayer money that's not the way to stop the boats it's like that you don't claim it's the way you don't even claim it's the way to stop the boats no and no one ever did it um as we said We know that the core of the Rwanda plan is to deal with those who cannot return to their country of origin, either because the country of origin is a government with which we cannot deal or a place where simply as a matter of policy they refuse. accept forced migration CHS, that is the core of Rwanda's policy, hence the detention of those to B, follow that path, if I can put it that way, that we have seen this morning, voluntary returns are a is a a uh additional to the core of the Rwanda plan and reflects the system that we have had on migration for some time.

You know we've always had a system where you can have a voluntary return and at the same time you can enforce it. comes back and I guess the truth is Kevin, you don't know and I don't know, no one knows precisely when a plane is going to take off and perhaps more importantly, when and if it does, how many Sports are going to be on board. Well, first, it would be foolish to give uh detailed operations. I suggest you don't know the answer to that, no, no, um, and I wouldn't expect to be informed. I am a former minister, not the current one. but we certainly know that people have been detained, it can only be done if we have a reasonable prospect of their removal, which tells me that, as we have heard recently, there are planes that will arrive shortly because you can not just bring people in and hope to expel them and it's also worth noting that the plan does not have a detention capacity limit of 2,200 people.

What you would do is bring people in before a flight so they are there, then of course once they have been on a flight you have that ability todetention to use again, so just having detention doesn't mean the whole scheme is limited to that level, yes. I mean, look, I mean, you don't think so, do you? Because I'm not sure anyone really believes it, that the boats can or will be stopped at election time. Well, we have to put the plan for Rwanda into action. We need to have that. it is part of the sweeter measures, by the way, you know this is not the only thing that is being done, you know, we can talk about the agreement with Albania, we talk about the work that is being done to return to places like Vietnam, where we have a direct return route. to the country that is concerned, so it's not just about Rwanda, but certainly Rwanda is an important part and particularly breaking that business model where someone who has been in a safe and democratic country could have claimed in some case a place where they even had legal status, they pay a smuggler to bring them to the UK and then because we can't expel them, they end up staying there.