According to a government investigation, nearly half of the asylum seekers who were supposed to be sent to Rwanda are nowhere to be found.

Timmy Mabs | 30th April, 2024.

According to a government investigation, nearly half of the asylum seekers who were supposed to be sent to Rwanda are nowhere to be found.

The government's own impact assessment states that the Home Office is unable to trace more than half of the asylum applicants assigned for removal to Rwanda.

Just over 2,000 of the almost 6,000 applicants who were supposed to receive a "Notice of Intent" stating that their asylum claim was rejected can still be located.

Only 2,143 of the 5,700 asylum seekers from the UK who are admitted by the Home Office in a new document "can be located for detention," despite the country's government having "in principle" consented to receive them.

The 3,557 asylum seekers who have vanished are either victims of administrative mistakes brought on by switching between taxpayer-funded accommodations or have fled into hiding to avoid deportation.

In this group are only asylum seekers who came between July 1, 2022, and June 29, 2023, and who have already received a letter informing them of the Rwanda plan.

Since July of this year is when the first flights are scheduled to take place, that means that those who arrived in Britain on a tiny boat the previous year will not be travelling.

Home Office workers "may be overwhelmed" and there will probably be "significant attention from MPs" to specific cases, according to the policy document.

It states that "delay or removal to be cancelled pending a response" could happen as a result of this.

Deportations are typically halted until members of Parliament obtain a response to their inquiries on a case.

The procedure for hearing asylum seekers' claims is also outlined in the recently released departmental guidelines.

Those who are granted asylum in Rwanda will remain there and cannot return to the United Kingdom; however, the document also states that "no individual...will be removed from Rwanda."

This implies that those whose claims were denied would still be living in the African nation.

Nevertheless, it won't be automatic for the new powers to disregard temporary injunctions issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) to stop flights from taking off.

Rather, the Home Secretary will have the authority to "evaluate, on a case-by-case basis."