I am a legal immigrant -- it’s why I’m keen on the Rwanda plan

THE asylum seeker was due to be on the first flight to Rwanda, having arrived on Britain’s shores in a flimsy boat after paying traffickers thousands of pounds to get here.

As he candidly told the BBC this week: ‘ If I’d known about the Rwanda scheme, I’d never have come to the UK.’ And that, surely, is the whole reason for the project temporarily thwarted by Leftie human rights lawyers and foreign judges based in Strasbourg, who made sure the flight never took off.

It’s all about deterring those prepared to risk their lives by coming here illegally. About giving out the message that they will not automatically arrive in a land of milk and money, with unlimited benefits, housing, access to the NHS, et cetera.

The Government is determined that no one thinks arriving in Dover automatically means they have a UK meal-ticket for life.

And that is absolutely right. Let’s not forget how broken the system is. More than 50,000 migrants have crossed the Channel in the past five years, and the cost of putting migrants up in hotels all over the country is a staggering £5 million a day.

Of course, those genuinely fleeing persecution must be cared for by this country. Yet one of the asylum seekers due to take the Rwanda flight, a Vietnamese man, said he sought refuge in the UK because he was being pursued by loan sharks. Another that he needed to be closer to his sister.

We simply can’t let everyone in. A country is no longer a country if it gives up on its borders.

The reason I feel so passionately about illegal migration is that I am an immigrant, after arriving here in 1985 from Australia.

True, my life in Oz was secure and the country’s hardly a hellhole. But I had to meet legal requirements to remain here.

I worked hard and am so grateful for every day I walk this green and pleasant land. I came in through the front door, legitimately. And the Rwanda scheme is there to stop those who aren’t prepared to do so.

So well done Boris Johnson and Priti Patel. The flights to Rwanda will take off one day and become a serious deterrent.

Just ask the chap on the BBC.