A PLANE scheduled to fly migrants to Rwanda was due to take failed asylum-seekers back to Vietnam last night.
It will take off with 50 Vietnamese being returned to their country in the first such flight since 2021.
Migrants from the Asian country have rocketed, with more than 1,000 crossing the Channel in the first three months of the year and nearly 3,500 since 2018.
The failed asylum-seekers, likely to have been in the system for some time, are being removed under a returns deal with Hanoi.
The Labour government has set up a returns and enforcement unit to speed up removals of those with no right to stay in the UK.
Last week, it was revealed Labour will fast track the asylum claims of 90,000 claims due to go to Rwanda.
Of the 90,000 told they could be put on deportation flights, about 60,000 are predicted to have their claims accepted.
Some of the Rwanda cohort had taken challenges to the High Court and were told yesterday that their claims would be processed within a week “as a priority”.
Former PM Rishi Sunak had made it impossible for migrants who arrived illegally to be granted refugee status.
It meant a huge backlog of cases had built up since his Illegal Migration Act came into force 18 months ago, as no deportation flights took off for Rwanda.
Sir Keir Starmer, who has scrapped the Rwanda scheme, said processing would begin on the estimated 90,000 claims.
It is understood a loophole could be used to tackle the backlog without repealing the Illegal Migration Act.
Arrivals from so-called safe countries, such as India and Albania, will be considered first as their claims are likely to be rejected, leading to them being deported.
