Speaking at the Tory Party Conference, home secretary Suella Braverman has said that ministers need to make the plan to divert asylum seekers to Rwanda “work”.
She has also suggested that she will seek to change laws around modern slavery to prevent abuses of the asylum system.
The number of migrants crossing the English Channel in small boats and coming to the UK have hit more than 33,500 in 2022, the highest on record.
In April, former home secretary Priti Patel set out the Rwanda plan to deter people from making the perilous crossings. Under it, asylum seekers who cross the Channel to the UK will be processed and then returned to their country of origin or proceed to Rwanda where they will be able to claim asylum.
However, the European Court of Human Rights intervened to cancel the first flight to Rwanda in June, minutes before it was due to leave.
Braverman said that the court was culpable of “undermining the sovereignty” of the UK’s borders, and her “dream” would be to enable a flight to Rwanda to go ahead before Christmas.
She said: “It is not racist for anyone, ethnic minority or otherwise, to want to control our borders. It is not bigoted to say we have too many asylum seekers abusing the system.
“It is not xenophobic to say mass and rapid migration places pressure on housing, public services and community relations.”
In June, the government made any migrant entering the UK from a “safe” country “inadmissible” for asylum status with limited exceptions and stopped people from being able to claim asylum in UK waters.
Braverman said that in her post as home secretary, she would work more closely with authorities in France to prevent Channel crossings from happening but warned it would take time to fix a “chronic” problem.
She added that the Modern Slavery Act brought in under former Conservative PM Theresa May would be scrapped to prevent abuses of the asylum system.
Braverman said: “The truth is that many of them are not modern slaves and their claims of being trafficked are lies,” explaining that “egregious” claims were being made by convicted criminals who were falling back on the Modern Slavery Act in a bid to remain in the UK.
The home secretary told the conference that she would introduce legislation to “make it clear that the only route to the UK is through a safe and legal route”.
