Asylum seekers arriving in the UK ‘may be fitted with electronic tags’ under new Home Office proposals

Asylum seekers who arrive in the UK ‘illegally’ could be fitted with electronic tags under Home Office plans to tackle the lack of space in immigration detention centres, it has been reported.

Under the recently-passed Illegal Migration Bill, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has a legal duty to detain and then deport migrants who arrive in the UK by ‘illegal’ means, either to Rwanda or another “safe third country”. However, there are limited spaces in detention centres, and flights to Rwanda are grounded following a ruling in the Court of Appeal - so there is the possibility that full capacity will soon be reached.

Ministers are therefore looking into alternative ways to “detain” asylum seekers. According to The Times and The Telegraph, one option being considered is fitting asylum seekers who are not given a place in a detention centre with an electronic tag.

First suggested more than a year ago, this plan would see ‘illegal’ migrants tracked in real time - and required to report to immigration officers multiple times a day, either by phone or in person. Those who fail to do this, or attempt to remove the tag, would have any right to remain in the UK automatically and immediately withdrawn.

However, officials have already been warned that this proposal could attract significant backlash - with human rights challenges likely to be brought against the Home Office on the grounds that migrants would be deprived of their liberty. There are also concerns over the “huge” cost - as well as the impact that this may have on the UK’s criminal justice system.

This is because the Justice Department last year announced plans to double the number of defendants and offenders tagged at any one time to 25,000, by March 2025. However, fitting asylum seekers with tags as well would add thousands more people to the system, with David Neal, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, admitting: “There will be fewer devices available than the number of individuals subject to the duty.”

A Home Office source told The Times that the government’s preferred solution is increasing the number of detention places available - but added that tagging is in turn preferred to withdrawing financial support from asylum seekers - another option which was raised. “This would be legally difficult as migrants would be at risk of being left destitute,” they explained.

Responding to the reports, Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said: “It’s treating people as mere objects rather than vulnerable men, women ,and children who should always be shown compassion and humanity. This is not who we are as a country, nor the Britain we aspire to be.”

Meanwhile, Home Secretary Braverman said she is willing to use a “range of options” to deal with migrants who cross the Channel in small boats.

She told Sky News: “We have a couple of thousand detention places in our existing removal capacity. We will be working intensively to increase that but it’s clear we are exploring a range of options - all options - to ensure that we have that level of control of people so they can flow through our system swiftly to enable us to remove them.”

It comes after recently-published Home Office data showed that Channel crossings topped 19,000 for the year so far, despite Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge back in January to “stop the boats”.

The asylum seeker backlog has also soared to a record high, with more than 175,000 people waiting for an initial decision on their application at the end of June. This means that the cost to the taxpayer in 2022/2023 has reached an eye-watering £3.97 billion - nearly doubling from £2.12 billion in 2021/22.

Under plans to cut spending, the Home Office is trying to end hotel accommodation and instead house asylum seekers in sites such as military bases or barges. However, the only barge being used so far is the Bibby Stockholm - which was intended to hold 500 asylum seekers - but is now empty after Legionella bacteria was discovered in the water supply.

Meanwhile, other plans to expand immigration detention capacity by reopening centres at Haslar, Hampshire, and Campsfield, Oxfordshire, have been delayed again - and will now provide capacity for only 290 people by July 2024.