Some asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on small boats across the Channel will be given a one-way ticket to Rwanda, under new government plans.
Home Secretary Priti Patel is in the African nation to agree a £120m trial involving mostly single men arriving in Britain on boats or lorries.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the scheme was needed to “save countless lives” from human trafficking.
Refugee organisations have criticised the plans as cruel and urged a rethink.
In a speech in Kent, Mr Johnson argued action was needed to stop “vile people smugglers” turning the ocean into a “watery graveyard”, adding the “humane and compassionate” plan was designed to break their business model.
He said he wanted to make clear to people arriving on the Kent coast they were better off taking legal routes and that the new plan would “over time prove a very considerable deterrent”.
Last year, 28,526 people are known to have crossed in small boats, up from 8,404 in 2020.
Around 600 people made the crossing on Wednesday, and Mr Johnson said the figure could reach 1,000 a day within weeks.
Mr Johnson said the scheme would be uncapped, affect those who arrived illegally since 1 January, and potentially involve tens of thousands in the coming years.
The BBC has seen accommodation the asylum seekers will be housed in, thought to have enough space for around 100 people at a time and to process up to 500 a year.
“We cannot sustain a parallel illegal system,” the prime minister said. “Our compassion may be infinite, but our capacity to help people is not.”
Opponents have also said the annual cost of the full scheme would be far higher than the initial £120m payment and raised concerns about Rwanda’s human rights record.
Labour said the plan was “unworkable, unethical and extortionate” – the Lib Dems said it would be expensive and ineffective.
Line graph showing numbers of people crossing the English Channel between 2019 and 2022
BBC home editor Mark Easton, reporting from Rwanda, explained ministers face legal hurdles and substantial costs to launch the scheme.
Precise details of the plan are yet to be confirmed, but, he said the trial would be restricted to mostly single men the British authorities believe are inadmissible.
Under the proposal, Rwanda would take responsibility for the people who make the more than 4,000 mile journey, put them through an asylum process, and at the end of that process, if they are successful, they will have long-term accommodation in Rwanda.
The Rwandan government said migrants will be “entitled to full protection under Rwandan law, equal access to employment, and enrolment in healthcare and social care services”.
The UK Home Office believes existing asylum law will be enough to implement the plan, but questions remain about the legality of the scheme.
Questions have also been raised over the human rights record of the Rwandan government and its president, Paul Kagame.
A number of his critics have been killed, or been subject to assassination attempts, but Rwanda has always dismissed suggestions its government was involved.
Concerns have also been raised over the conviction of Paul Rusesabagina – the subject of Hollywood film Hotel Rwanda about his role saving more than 1,000 people during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide – on terrorism charges.
Last year, the UK government itself expressed concern over “continued restrictions to civil and political rights and media freedom” in Rwanda at the United Nations, calling for independent investigations into “allegations of extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture”.
However, Mr Johnson defended Rwanda as being one of the safest countries in the world adding it was “globally recognised for its record of welcoming and integrating migrants”.
The prime minister also announced:
Asylum seekers who are resettled in the UK will be spread more evenly across local authorities
Plans to hand operational control of the Channel to the Royal Navy
£50m in funding for new equipment and specialist personnel for Channel operations
A new government facility to house migrants, described as a reception centre, in Linton-on-Ouse, North Yorkshire
Source: BBC