'No free way to police our borders', Badenoch says, after first migrant sent to Rwanda with £3,000 in taxpayer money

1 May 2024, 09:40

Kemi Badenoch has admitted that there is "no free way to police our borders", after the first asylum seeker was sent to Rwanda with thousands of pounds of taxpayer money.

The unnamed migrant - who is African origin - left the UK on Monday evening, after his bid to stay in Britain was rejected at the end of 2023. The voluntary deportation did not fall under the government's new landmark deportation laws.

The man was sent on a commercial flight and given around £3,000 of taxpayer money to help relocate under the terms of a deal with Rwanda.

In response to the news, Ms Badenoch, the women and equalities minister, said: "There is no cost-free option, that is the truth of it. It’s better this way than for him to be in the UK either claiming benefits or being entitled to things that people in this country don’t have, which would be much more expensive for the taxpayer.

"But there is no free way to police our borders, and there is no free way to deal with something that is affecting not just this country but all of western Europe as well."

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Ms Badenoch said that the voluntary return "puts to bed the nonsensical myth that Rwanda was not a safe place."

"It is [safe]," she said, "which is why people go on holiday there, I know somebody who’s having a very lovely gap year there."

Ms Badenoch said: "We need to move past a lot of those myths, which are actually just disparaging about an African country. This scheme is a deterrent… it is working. Obviously the easiest cases will be the first but there will be many more."

She added: "If you look at what the Irish government has been saying recently, it looks like it’s already working. They’re complaining that they’re getting people, failed asylum seekers, going over there, because they don’t want to go to Rwanda."

The removal was the first time the government has relocated a failed asylum seeker to a third country in what the government hopes to be the first of thousands.

I was part of a side scheme to the forced deportation of illegal immigrants policy that is set to begin flights in July.

But there were sighs of relief in Whitehall last night that the first removal and Rwandan processing went off without a hitch - in what planners have dubbed a “proof of concept” success.

A well placed source said: “This proves its possible and legal for Britain to remove failed asylum seekers to Rwanda successfully and smoothly.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak believes the new policy will act as a deterrent and stop people from making the trip across the Channel in small boats.

Caller Kit says Rishi Sunak is 'trying desperately to cling on to the supporters' of Rwanda policy

Last week, five migrants - including a seven-year-old girl - died making the journey.

However, critics of the policy say it is inhumane and potentially ineffective as a deterrent.