Police will mount raids to find missing migrants so they can be deported to Rwanda, a Cabinet minister has said.
Health Secretary Victoria Atkins was commenting on reports that the Home Office has lost contact with thousands of people who are set to be removed from the UK.
She said on GB News: “On this point about the numbers, it’s important to understand there are different arrangements for different people.
“For example, some people are detained, others are allowed to live with friends or families, but they should be reporting into the Home Office regularly so that they keep that relationship up.
“Now, of course, the Home Office will be checking these people and we’ll be finding these people.
“Law enforcement visits massively increased in the last year, that’s important because we have to have the enforcement message.”
In a discussion with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster, she continued: “Law enforcement will be after these people, so that isn’t the end of the story by any means.
“We know the success that law enforcement has had. there’s a range of measures that they can use either not just in removing 25,000 immigrants last year but also importantly, making immigration raids and closing some 7,000 bank accounts so that people cannot live or work in the United Kingdom once they have fallen off the radar.
“I, nobody, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, none of us have pretended this is easy. We are up against organised crime gangs, they make a business out of this.
“But we are taking measures to, first of all stop the flow of people coming into the UK and then we are dealing with them when they are here. And that’s why the Rwanda act is such an important piece of legislation.”
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