The UK expects to deport nearly 6,000 migrants to Rwanda this year, a senior minister said Tuesday, after the government published new details on the controversial scheme.
The figures come days after the plan aimed at deterring migrant arrivals on small boats from northern Europe became law following months of parliamentary wrangling.
Rwanda has "in principle" agreed to accept 5,700 migrants already in the UK, the interior ministry revealed late Monday.
Of those, 2,143 "can be located for detention" before being flown there, according to the ministry.
Law enforcement agencies will find the remainder, Health Secretary Victoria Atkins said Tuesday when asked about the 5,700 earmarked for deportation.
"The expectation is that we remove that group of people... by the end of the year," she told Sky News television.
"If somebody doesn't report as they should do... They will be found."
Migrants who arrived in the UK between January 2022 and June last year are liable to have their asylum claims deemed inadmissible and be removed to Rwanda, the interior ministry said.
More than 57,000 people arrived on small boats after trying to cross the Channel during this 18-month period, according to official statistics.
The figure underlines the scale of the challenge trying to stem irregular arrivals, and the limits of the government's contentious plan to send some of them to Rwanda.
Under the scheme -- set to cost UK taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds -- their asylum claims will be examined by Kigali.
If approved, they will be allowed to stay in Rwanda and not return to the UK.
Rwanda, home to 13 million people in Africa's Great Lakes region, lays claim to being one of the most stable countries on the continent and has drawn praise for its modern infrastructure.
But rights groups accuse veteran President Paul Kagame of ruling in a climate of fear, stifling dissent and free speech.
UK lawmakers last week passed the Safety of Rwanda Bill, which compels British judges to regard the nation as a safe third country.
It followed a UK Supreme Court ruling last year that said sending migrants on a one-way ticket there was illegal.
The new law also gives decision-makers on asylum applications the power to disregard sections of international and domestic human rights law.
UK opposition parties, UN agencies and various rights groups have criticised the flagship policy of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative government.
He said last week that deportation flights are expected to begin within 10-12 weeks.
Ireland will act to send asylum seekers back to UK: PM
On Sunday, Ireland's prime minister Simon Harris warned that Dublin would take action to stem an influx of asylum seekers from Northern Ireland.
Ireland would not, he said, let other countries use it as a "loophole" for their own immigration policy.
His comments confirmed a report from broadcaster RTE that Ireland is looking to amend the law to allow the return of asylum seekers to the United Kingdom.
Last week, Dublin's Minister of Justice Helen McEntee told a parliamentary committee that some 80 percent of those applying for asylum in the republic had arrived over the land border with Northern Ireland.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, in comments broadcast Sunday on Sky News, said this was evidence that London's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda was acting as a deterrent.
In response, Harris said: "Every country is entitled to have its own migration policy.
"But I certainly don't intend to allow anybody else's migration policy to affect the integrity of our own one."
He added: "This country will not in any way, shape or form provide a loophole for anybody else's migration challenges."
McEntee would introduce the proposed changes to the law on Tuesday to put the new returns policy in place, he said.
"We're going to await the full details of that but it's one which will effectively allow, again, people to be returned to the United Kingdom. And I think that's quite appropriate."