The Home Office will launch a surprise operation to detain asylum seekers across the UK on Monday in preparation for deportation to Rwanda, weeks earlier than expected, the Guardian understands.
Officials plan to hold refugees who turn up for routine meetings at immigration service offices and will also pick people up nationwide in a two-week exercise.
They will be immediately transferred to detention centres, which have already been prepared for the operation, and held to be put on later flights to Rwanda. Others identified for these flights are already being held.
It is thought the launch of the operation has been timed to coincide with Thursday’s local council elections in England, to boost Rishi Sunak’s claims he is cracking down on illegal migration.
The prime minister stated last week the first flights to Rwanda would take off in “10 to 12 weeks” after the government forced its controversial bill legalising the flights through Westminster.
Police in Scotland have been put on alert because of the high risks of street protests and attempts by pro-refugee campaigners to stop detentions.
Local communities in Scotland have twice prevented deportations by staging mass protests on Kenmure Street in Glasgow, in May 2021, and in Nicolson Square, Edinburgh, in June 2022.
On both occasions, hundreds of people surrounded immigration enforcement vehicles to prevent asylum seekers being removed after tense standoffs between protesters and police.
Demonstrators were alerted by a protesters’ network to the detentions on Kenmure Street, and two men were eventually released from Border Force custody after a six-hour confrontation to avoid violent clashes.
Related: Ireland plans to send asylum seekers back to UK under emergency law
Police Scotland officers will not take part in the detentions for the Rwanda flights operation but will take part in crowd control and policing the Border Force’s operations.
Speaking on Monday before the Lords and Commons sat through the night to pass the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill, Sunak said: “To detain people while we prepare to remove them, we’ve increased detention spaces to 2,200.
“To quickly process claims, we’ve got 200 trained, dedicated caseworkers ready and waiting. To deal with any legal cases quickly and decisively, the judiciary have made available 25 courtrooms and identified 150 judges who could provide over 5,000 sitting days.”
Aamer Anwar, a Glasgow-based human rights lawyer who was directly involved in the Kenmure Street protests, said Police Scotland and the Scottish government had to be certain they believed this was lawful.
“Offshoring people 5,000 miles away is nothing more than a grubby cash for people plan,” he said.
He added: “I suspect in the coming days we will see an explosion of the spirit of Kenmure Street across the UK, opposing a policy that will lead to misery, self-harm and death, driving so many more into the arms of people smugglers.
“The fundamental question for the Scottish government as well as Police Scotland is whether they are willing to engage in this barbaric abuse of power against a desperate people.”
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