Priti’s drive to tell the world: We’re closed to illegal migrants
As boats continue to cross the Channel...
PRITI PATEL is to launch a foreign language information campaign announcing that Britain is ‘closed for business’ to illegal migrants, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
A Government source said that after striking a dramatic deal, the Home Secretary wants to spread the word internationally and let ‘people know the rules have changed and if you arrive illegally to the UK, you can be deported to Rwanda’.
About 28,500 people entered the UK illegally last year after crossing the Channel. More than 200 migrants from small boats are thought to have been brought to Dover yesterday, bringing this year’s total to more than 6,000 – a figure only reached last year in July.
Ministry of Defence officials said 1,394 had arrived between Wednesday and Friday.
The £100,000 information campaign will use social media to reach people in ‘source countries’ in their own languages. In a bid to stop a rush, it will make clear the new measures are backdated to January 1.
A Cabinet Minister who supports the policy said: ‘For this to be the success it needs to be, we need to make sure potential migrants fully understand Britain is closed for business to people-traffickers.’
The deal – expected to be the subject of legal challenges – was presented to Cabinet Ministers on Wednesday by Ms Patel and the Prime Minister.
The Rwandan government will receive £120 million in investment from the UK with the cost of housing each migrant for three months estimated at £20,000 to £30,000.
Ms Patel issued a ministerial direction, only the second in the department for 30 years, to force through the policy after objections from Permanent Secretary Matthew Rycroft.
Senior Home Office civil servants have expressed dismay at the cost. One said: ‘It will be astronomical. The legal bill alone will be huge.’
Last night, the Home Office published an exchange of letters between Ms Patel and Mr Rycroft in which he called for a ministerial direction as he could not justify the policy’s value for money.
The package also includes a new immigration centre for 500 men at a former RAF base in Linton-on-Ouse, Yorkshire.
The Labour Party has been accused of ‘hypocritical’ attacks against the plans because Tony Blair’s administration proposed deporting migrants overseas in 2003.
Keith Saunders, Border Force’s chief immigration officer in Calais between 2001 and 2016, said the two sets of plans were not ‘dissimilar’, adding: ‘Whoever is in power, the other side will have a go. It would be more helpful if they all tried to work together.’