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A British immigration lawyer has hit out at fresh government plans to push their ongoing Rwanda plan into action, as they are now set to offer a money incentive for migrants to leave Britain.
Asylum seekers whose applications fail in the UK are to be offered up to £3,000 to move to Rwanda under a new voluntary scheme.
According to The Times, the new plan will exist under a variation of an existing voluntary returns scheme, where migrants receive a payment to return to their home country.
Business minister Kevin Hollinrake defended the plan and said the scheme would be a “good use of public money”.
Ivon Sampson says the UK must ‘protect our borders’ amid fresh Rwanda plans
GB News / PA
Hollinrake told Times Radio: “It costs a lot more money than that to keep people in this country who are out here without merit.
“I don’t think anybody would try and come here just to get £3,000 to go to Rwanda.”
Speaking to GB News, Immigration Lawyer Ivon Sampson expressed his doubts about the plans and said voluntary returns are “nothing new”.
Sampson said the government’s thinking behind the scheme is a bid to avoid a “breach of human rights” and a Rule 39 injunction by the Supreme Court, because the deportation will be “voluntary”.
Migrants flown to Rwanda would be given £3,000 and free accommodation for five years
PA
Sampson highlighted: “They haven’t told us is how much Rwanda is getting paid. We know that each person will get £3,000, but how much is the government paying Rwanda as well as the cost of the accommodation?”
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Discussing the proposed plans with Nigel Farage, Sampson told GB News: “How many people will actually take the scheme up to make it worthwhile? How many can Rwanda take? It’s not going to have an impact on the small budget.
“It’s not going to make a dent in the numbers coming across from the small boats, from 26,000 up to 45,000, probably about 30,000 maybe this year. So it’s not going to have any impact whatsoever.
“What the government needs to do is secure our borders. We’re an island. If we were a land border, I can understand, like Mexico and the US. But we are an island, we should be able to secure these stretch of waters to prevent people from entering illegally.”
Nigel agreed, responding: “I think if we had the political will, we could do it. But I think that this could act as a further pull factor for people to cross the Channel.”
Nigel Farage says the plan will ‘encourage’ more migrants to make the crossing
GB News
Sampson was skeptical about Nigel’s point, and argued that people may not want to “travel across several countries” to get £3,000 and be sent to Rwanda.
Admitting he “wasn’t sure” if it would encourage migrants to cross the Channel and do it “again and again”, given the costs they had already most likely paid to people traffickers.
Nigel asked Sampson: “If the worst case scenario is you’re given £3,000 and the chance to live for free and work in Rwanda. It’s not all bad, is it?”
The lawyer responded: “I agree it could be a factor, but we need to secure our borders. We need to know who’s coming across and where they come from. They could be terrorists coming across.
“We’ve had this conversation before – they could be Hamas terrorists. How will we know? So we need to secure this border, and the government is not doing it.”
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