Home Office source says it's 'not possible' to deliver on promise to detain all small boat migrants made by the Home Secretary and PM. 'It isn’t going to happen.'
Storm Ciarán leaves 11,000 homes without electricity as more flooding could be on the wayHome Office source says it’s ‘not possible’ to deliver on promise to detain all small boat migrants made by the Home Secretary and PM. ‘It isn’t going to happen.
He said civil servants were looking to create more space at existing detention centres as well as hunting for potential new sites. The existing immigration detention estate currently has capacity for between 2,500 and 3,000 people, and is mostly used for criminals and immigration offenders awaiting deportation, while almost 27,000 small boat migrants have arrived this year alone.
”Rather than reducing the need for accommodation, their failure to get a grip means far more taxpayers’ money is being spent on the asylum system.”Job adverts said some officials would be tasked with “identifying feasible sites across the UK to accommodate new Immigration Removal Centres , securing planning permission and leading on local community engagement”, while others would be “managing the end-to-end build cycle”.
The Illegal Migration Act, passed in July, imposes a new legal duty on the home secretary to detain and deport small boat migrants, but it has not yet been triggered as the government awaits the court ruling on the Rwanda deal. The assessment said the laws would only be “value for public money” if they deter at least 37 per cent of Channel crossings, but warned: “Any deterrence impact relies on the policy working as intended, with sufficient capacity to detain and remove an appreciable proportion of individuals in scope to a safe third country.”