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The UK is looking to speed up the return of migrants to 11 countries including Iraq, Ethiopia and Vietnam in a bid to reduce the number of people residing in the country without the right to work or study.
The government has announced a three-year £15m contract with a commercial partner to support the “reintegration” of people returning from the UK.
According to official documents, the Interior Ministry intends to provide assistance to Albania, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Iraq, Jamaica, Nigeria, Pakistan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
Activists have highlighted human rights abuses in Iraq, where the British government has admitted that certain undocumented returnees are at real risk of serious harm at security checkpoints when trying to move around the country.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to “crush the gangs” smuggling asylum seekers across the English Channel in small boats.
He also pledged to significantly speed up the repatriation of illegal migrants to their home countries in a bid to reduce the growing cost of supporting asylum seekers and foreign criminals.
The government has identified a £6.4 billion overspending in this year’s refugee budget, which is believed to have led to decisions to cut public spending elsewhere and raise taxes in the autumn budget.
The previous Conservative government overspent on the asylum system by an average of billions of dollars a year between 2021 and 2023, according to a report published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on Thursday.
Contracts released by the Home Office this month indicate the government intends to focus its resources on repatriating migrants, including through bilateral agreements.
Previous administrations have struggled to significantly increase the amount collected, in part because of migrant complaints about human rights and the high costs involved.
Last week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced that the government aimed to increase the number of returning migrants – which has fallen sharply over the past decade – to levels similar to 2018.
She has set a target of repatriating 14,500 migrants over the next six months, including asylum seekers, foreign criminals and those living and working in the UK illegally.
Labour has set up a “repatriation unit” within the Home Office to fast-track cases of people from priority countries and has recruited about 300 of a planned 1,000 people to work for it.
One problem the government faces as it seeks to speed up the repatriation process is that many of those coming to the UK to claim asylum are not on the country’s list of “safe countries”.
Under international law, asylum seekers cannot be returned to a country if it would endanger their safety. Returns from countries not listed as safe will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
The Home Office said the government was planning to carry out “a significant increase in immigration enforcement and removals activity to remove those without the right to be in the UK and ensure the rules are respected and enforced”.
The report also added that continued international cooperation with partner countries plays a “vital role” and that it will “work closely with a number of countries globally”.
