The US could start deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda in a deal replicating the Tory scheme abandoned by Labour.
The central African state has already received US deportees, including at least one Iraqi, according to a diplomatic cable reported in the US.
The cable suggested Rwanda might join the list of “third countries” where Donald Trump’s administration sends deportees. The list includes El Salvador, which has taken in hundreds.
Sir Keir Starmer scrapped the Tory government’s Rwanda deportation scheme as soon as he won the election last July, without a single enforced removal having taken place.
The money has instead been diverted to fund a new Border Security Command, designed to use counter-terror style powers to smash people-smuggling gangs.
Children at a detention centre in Costa Rica after being deported from the US in March – Mayela Lopez/Reuters
The Tories’ attempts to get deportation flights off the ground were thwarted by the Supreme Court ruling the scheme unlawful under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), forcing Rishi Sunak to introduce new laws.
Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, congratulated the US president on Friday, posting on X: “Well done, President Trump.”
She added: “The ECHR and the Strasbourg court stopped us from deporting illegal migrants to Rwanda. Then Labour cancelled our Rwanda deterrent on their first day in office.
“It would have made the British people safer and stopped the boats. The Americans are showing us what proper border control looks like. Humiliating for the UK.”
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “If the US uses Rwanda to remove illegal migrants, it will simply underscore the catastrophic mistake Keir Starmer made last summer by cancelling our Rwanda scheme even before it started.
“We know that removals deterrents work. We saw that in Australia 10 years ago. The EU, Germany and now it seems the US is looking at this as well.”
Suella Braverman, at the time the home secretary, visiting a detention camp in Rwanda, intended for migrants deported from the UK in 2023 – Stefan Rousseau/PA
He added: “Keir Starmer has gone in the opposite direction and that is why 2025 so far has been the worst year ever for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel. I urge Starmer to develop some backbone and urgently restart the Rwanda scheme.”
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has consistently criticised the Rwanda scheme as a waste of money that cost taxpayers some £700 million. Just four migrants were sent to the African state, all voluntarily.
The £700 million included £290 million in payments to Rwanda, as well as the costs of chartering flights that never took off, detaining hundreds of people and then releasing them, and paying for more than 1,000 civil servants to work on the scheme.
Under the agreement, the UK had paid £220 million as of February 2024, with three further payments each of £50 million to be made in April 2024, 2025 and 2026.
The agreement contained a break clause that the UK could activate at any point without having to make any further payments. The termination would take effect three months after the point of notification, according to the National Audit Office (NAO) which had access to the documentation.
However, The Telegraph revealed earlier this year that Rwanda had invoiced the Government for the £50 million that it originally agreed to forgo when Labour scrapped the scheme.
A demonstration against harsh treatment of migrants in New York City on April 19 – Kena Betancur/AFP via Getty
A government source said: “Eighty-four thousand people crossed the Channel in small boats from the day the Rwanda scheme was introduced to the day it was scrapped.
“During that entire time, and despite spending £700 million trying to make the scheme work, the Tories could only persuade four failed asylum-seekers to go to Rwanda instead of being deported to their home country.
“Those four individuals are currently enjoying free housing, free food, free private healthcare, and free university education, at a cost to the British taxpayer of £150,000 each.
“That is the scheme the Tories now want to bring back, not what the Trump administration is doing, and if they want to make that case to the British people, the Tories need to start by being honest about what it achieved last time round, and how much it cost.”
Labour is also exploring proposals to deport failed asylum seekers from the UK to return hubs abroad, possibly in the western Balkans, as a deterrent.
The plan has been backed as lawful by the UN’s refugee agency the UNHCR, unlike the Rwanda scheme, which would have deported migrants who had not yet tried to claim asylum in the UK, denying them that right.
