Speaking during a recent interview with LBC, the former immigration minister said that if he succeeded in his bid for the UK's top leadership, he would introduce a 'more robust' version of the Rwanda migration deal, which was terminated by the Labour Party in July 2024.
Jenrick is among six contenders seeking to succeed Rishi Sunak as the Conservative Party leader in polls slated for October. Other candidates are Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat.
Asked if he would revive the migration plan which the Labour Party dismissed as costly, Jenrick said, "Yes, I would. I want a stronger version of the Rwanda plan."
He slammed some of his colleagues in the Conservative Party for refusing to support his efforts to strengthen Rishi Sunak's version of the Rwanda Bill, which led to his resignation as Cabinet minister.
According to him, the plan would have succeeded if the government had accepted his proposed amendments.
"That's what I proposed at the turn of the year, one which would enable us to detain people upon arrival and then remove them within hours or days rather than weeks and months. I believe that's possible. It would have been possible if the Government at the time had accepted the amendments that I put down with around 60 other Conservative MPs,' he disclosed.
He argued that while critics deemed the former administration's migration deal as costly, illegal migration also carries significant costs.
'Illegal migration is costing several billion pounds in this country every year. Those costs are rising, I don't see that they're going to fall any time soon,' the former cabinet minister said while reacting to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper claims that Sunak's administration secretly planned to spend £10billion on the migration project.
Quizzed on how much it would cost, he said: "It depends how many people were sent, because there are both fixed costs and costs per illegal migrants sent to Rwanda. But the broader point is this - the cost of illegal migration is very high.'
He added, "And there's not a price that you can easily put on securing the borders of our country. A country without borders is not really a country at all."
When questioned about the accuracy of the £10 billion figure, Jenrick accused the administration of new UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer of 'bandying around numbers both on the public finances and on illegal migration, to justify political choices."
The UK-Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was signed in April 2022. The deal aimed to deter unauthorized immigration, especially people arriving by small boats, by referring the asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The migration scheme was set to kick off in July after a two-year delay occasioned by court battles and opposition from a section of Members of Parliament.
After defeating the Conservatives in the July polls, Starmer announced his intention to terminate the deal, insisting that the policy was neither a deterrent nor value for money.
Starmer's government plans to tackle the issue 'upstream' by dismantling the people-smuggling gangs behind the movements.
Wycliffe Nyamasege
