LONDON: The UK Home Office is proposing to spend £306 million ($389 million) on new detention centers for migrants in response to what it described as an “unprecedented rise in small boat crossings.”
The government is looking for contractors to operate three “immigration removal centers” that will hold a total of 1,000 asylum seekers, the Independent newspaper reported on Monday.
Two of the contracts are for facilities that will each accommodate 360 migrants at a cost of £108 million, while they third will house 300 at a cost of £90 million, according to the Daily Mail.
In addition, up to 10 vacant student-housing properties and disused office blocks are reportedly under consideration, as the government continues its push to move migrants out of hotel accommodation while their cases are processed.
“We are committed to the removal of foreign criminals and those with no right to be in the UK,” a Home Office spokesperson told the Independent.
“Immigration removal centers play a vital role in controlling our borders and we have been finding further solutions to scale up our detention capacity.”
The proposal is part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to “stop the boats” packed with migrants from crossing the English Channel. His government has enacted legislation designed to make it easier for people arriving illegally on boats to be “detained and swiftly returned” to their home countries or third-party nations such as Rwanda.
According to official figures, 16,790 migrants have arrived in the UK on small boats since Jan. 1 and the numbers are expected to rise as England’s southern coast enjoys a period of good weather.
