28 April 2024 , 14:18
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The Home Office is expected to begin detaining asylum seekers on Monday as it prepares to begin deportation flights to Rwanda.
A two-week operation will see people taken to detention centres ready to be put on planes. According to the Guardian, police in Scotland have been put on alert because of the risk of protests and attempts by pro-refugee campaigners to stop detentions.
Local communities in Scotland have previously prevented deportations by staging mass protests in Glasgow in May 2021 and in Edinburgh in June 2022. Hundreds of people surrounded immigration enforcement vehicles to prevent asylum seekers being removed.
The first deportation flight to Rwanda will take off in June after MPs and peers last week finally passed the Safety of Rwanda Bill. Bungling ministers let slip the date of the first flight after they left documents lying around in Downing Street.
A government briefing document, inadvertently left behind at a No10 press conference, stated: "The first charter flight to Rwanda is provisionally scheduled for June (please protect)."
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Mr Sunak last week said planes would take off "come what may", adding: “No ifs, no buts. These flights are going to Rwanda." He said that charter planes had been booked and that an unnamed airfield was on standby for several flights to go every month.
A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Now that the Safety of Rwanda Act has passed and our Treaty with Rwanda has been ratified, Government is entering the final phase of operationalising this landmark policy to tackle illegal migration and stop the boats. At some stage inevitably this will include detaining people in preparation for the first flight, which is set to take off to Rwanda in 10 to 12 weeks. It would be inappropriate to comment further on operational activity.”