Labour to fast-track plans to grant 90,000 Rwandan assigned migrants asylum on day a small boat overturned in the channel killing one person
Labour will fast-track plans to allow 90,000 migrants earmarked for deportation to Rwanda to claim asylum in Britain.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to unveil new legislation as early as this week that will kickstart the asylum claims process for thousands of people who had feared they could be removed from the UK.
The Refugee Council estimates that between 60,000 and 90,000 people will be granted asylum despite having entered the country illegally.
However, officials are expected to prioritise asylum seekers from 'safe' countries such as Vietnam, Albania, Egypt and India, which makes up 30 per cent of the overall figure, The Telegraph reported.
News of the move comes just hours after a migrant died after an overcrowded dinghy sunk while trying to cross the English Channel.
Labour will fast-track plans to allow 90,000 migrants earmarked for deportation to Rwanda to claim asylum in Britain (file photo of small boat crossings)
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (pictured) is expected to unveil new legislation later as early as next week
Just under 36,000 of the migrants who are set to have their claims processed are currently living in hotels, which cost £2.9 million a day for the taxpayer, the Telegraph reported.
The paper also understands that the move will not require any changes to Rishi Sunak's Illegal Migration Act, which was brought in last year.
This is because the former Prime Minister never activated two elements of the act -that any asylum claims made in the last 18 months would be deemed inadmissible and they would then be deported to Rwanda - which would have prevented Labour's plans from being enacted.
It also emerged last night that one migrant had died while trying to cross the Channel from France on a small boat.
Seventy-one other people were rescued after the vessel deflated off Gravelines on France's northern coast on Wednesday, the regional maritime police authority said in a statement.
French emergency services sent a plane, two helicopters and a rescue boat to search for people drifting in the water.
Seventy-one other people were rescued after the vessel deflated off Gravelines on France's northern coast. Pictured is a file photo of The Cormoran, a French public service patrol boat that was involved in Wednesday's rescue
All those rescued were put ashore at Calais and received by the emergency services.
The tragic death comes as Britain's new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to tackle the migrant crisis by smashing smuggling gangs.
The Cormoran, a French public service patrol boat, was notified at the end of day Wednesday that a dinghy had deflated off Gravelines.
French and British emergency responders rushed to provide aid to the 72 migrants who had gone overboard.
A French ship took 59 people on board, including one who was unconscious and 'could not be revived', the French maritime police said. A British coastguard boat took on a further 13 people.
Aircraft and vessels searched over a large area around the wreck site until dark and found no other people.
On Friday, four people were reported killed after a packed boat carrying asylum seekers capsized at 4.30am off the coast of Boulogne sur Mer, in northern France.
The regional prefect, Jacques Billant, said the four dead men were thought to be Somalian, Eritrean or Ethiopian.
Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer (pictured yesterday during the King's Speech) has vowed to tackle the migrant crisis by smashing smuggling gangs
Migrants, some wearing lifejackets, were seen on July 11, 2024 packing onto a beach at Graveslines in Normandy as they sought to sail to the UK
French cops wearing riot gear were later pictured watching on as the migrants launched into the Channel on their overpacked inflatable boat on July 11, 2024
He said 56 passengers were rescued from that shipwreck after their vessel likewise deflated.
Five migrants including a young girl also died off the same coastal region on April 23 this year.
More than 12,000 people have made the Channel crossing so far this year, according to Home Office provisional figures released in mid-June.
The figure was 18 percent higher than for the equivalent point last year, when 10,472 people had made the crossing.
Sir Keir and his Labour Government have vowed to create laws that will 'modernise the asylum and immigration system', as well as launch a security border command.
The Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, announced in the King's Speech on Wednesday, will establish the new Home Office unit, using counter-terror powers to fight organised immigration crime.
The Bill, which will apply across the UK if passed, will ensure 'secure and stronger borders and a properly controlled and managed asylum system', the Government vowed, as it repeated general promises to clear the asylum backlog, to end the use of hotel accommodation and increase 'fast-track returns for individuals coming from safe countries'.
Some 35 migrants arrived in Dover on July 12, 2024, after making the crossing overnight
Building on Labour's manifesto pledges, documents detailing the plans said existing policies had 'failed' to deter Channel crossings or prosecute the people smugglers responsible, and 'our current asylum system is broken'.
Withdrawing from the 'failed and incredibly costly Migration and Economic Development Partnership' to send migrants to Rwanda would save 'over £100 million in future payments', as well as 'tens of millions of pounds' in additional relocation costs for a small number of people.
But there was no mention of answering calls from campaigners to repeal the Safety of Rwanda Act or Illegal Migration Act.
The document setting out the Bill suggests the Government will seek a 'strong deterrent' against migrants crossing the Channel but stops short of detailing what this could be in the absence of the Rwanda deal.
It does indicate tougher penalties for immigration crime, including introducing offences such as 'enabling the advertising (of) the services of a migrant smuggling group' or those for the 'supply of materials needed to facilitate organised crime gangs'.
Sir Keir previously said the Rwanda deal was 'dead and buried before it started' as Labour confirmed it was scrapping the deportation policy.
A group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, from a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel on July 13, 2024
The arrangement is not thought to have yet formally ended and the cost to the UK Government of walking away early from the five-year deal is so far unknown.
The Rwanda government previously said it had 'fully upheld its side of the agreement'.
Launching the Border Security Command earlier this month, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper described it as Labour's first priority on migration, which was designed to crack down on people-smuggling gangs orchestrating the crossings.
A commander for the unit is expected to be appointed in the coming weeks. It is unclear how this will differ from existing units already operating in the Home Office.
