Mr Johnson will outline the initiative in a speech on Thursday in Kent, south-east England, where thousands of migrants landed on Channel beaches in small boats last year, as he targets illegal immigration which worries many members of his party.
British Home Secretary Priti Patel has traveled to Rwanda, where she will give details of plans to set up a detention centre, which The Times newspaper said would initially cost 120 million pounds ( $157.61 million).
A government minister said the plan focused on single young men. “These are mainly male economic migrants,” Simon Hart, Secretary of State for Wales, told Sky News. “There is a different set of issues with women and children.”
Last year, more than 28,000 migrants and refugees crossed from mainland Europe to Britain. The arrival of migrants on rickety boats has been a source of tension between France and Britain, especially after 27 migrants drowned when their dinghy deflated in November.
Mr Johnson will announce plans to tackle smuggling gangs and increase UK operations in the Channel, his office said. He will say the plan represents a commitment to readers who supported the Brexit campaign he led.
“Before Christmas, 27 people drowned, and in the coming weeks there may be many more who will lose their lives at sea, and whose bodies may never be found,” Mr. Johnson, according to his office.
“Around 600 people crossed the English Channel yesterday. In a few weeks that figure could rise to a thousand a day again.”
Johnson faced fresh calls to resign after being fined by police on Tuesday for attending a rally on his birthday in June 2020, when the social panorama was virtually banned under COVID-19 rules his government introduced .
In his speech on Thursday, he will accept that migrants seek a better life but will say that their dreams are being exploited by people smugglers.
“So just as Brexit allowed us to regain control of legal immigration by replacing free movement with our points system, we are also regaining control of illegal immigration, with a long-term plan for asylum in this country,” Johnson said.
The head of a refugee advocacy group has said the plan goes against the principle of giving asylum seekers a fair hearing on British soil.
“I think it’s quite extraordinary that the government is obsessed with control instead of focusing on competence and compassion,” Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, told BBC radio.
The government has scrambled to find solutions as the number of Channel crossings has increased.
A previous idea for the British navy to return the boats was rejected by the army, while he also considered housing asylum seekers on disused oil platforms, or in countries such as Moldova , Papua New Guinea and its remote overseas territories in the South Atlantic, according to newspaper reports.
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