The British government releases a video of the first migrant detentions under the controversial Rwanda plan, calling it a milestone

London – The British government released video clips on Wednesday of what it said were the country's first detentions of migrants without permission under a highly controversial new procedure program aimed at deporting them to Rwanda. The plan, implemented by the country's ruling Conservative Party, was approved by lawmakers last week after more than two years of political wrangling over its legality.

Video posted online on Wednesday by the Home Office, which is responsible for all law enforcement and immigration matters in the United Kingdom, showed armed immigration officers taking handcuffed people from houses into waiting vans. All people in the video, both inmates and officers, were heavily blurred to conceal their identities.

In a statement on Wednesday, British Home Secretary James Cleverly called the Rwanda policy “a groundbreaking response to the global challenge of illegal migration.”

The policy was enacted last week by the country's conservative-controlled parliament, although it had previously done so declared unlawful by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Under the plan, asylum seekers who arrive on British shores without prior authorization can be sent to Rwanda to process their asylum claim and may be banned from ever returning to the UK

It was drawn up several years ago as a response to this by the Conservative government increasing numbers of migrants and asylum seekers reaching the UK on small boats or on trucks from France. It applies to anyone who enters the UK without prior authorization, even if their aim is to seek asylum and they have legitimate reasons for doing so.

No flight has yet departed from Britain to Rwanda carrying people detained under the program, and it was unclear when and where the asylum claims of those captured in the video might be processed, or whether they had already made such claims or planned to do so.

In one Share explanation later The Interior Ministry said on social media that a total of 44 people were arrested during Wednesday's operations, including “foreign criminals with combined prison sentences of more than 61 years for offenses such as gun and knife crime.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – whose Conservative Party looks set to face defeat in a general election this year after more than a decade in power – has promised the first planes will leave by the summer.

“Our dedicated enforcement teams are working diligently to quickly arrest those who have no right to be here so we can begin flights,” Cleverly said in his statement. “This is complex work, but we remain committed to implementing policy to stop the boats and disrupt the business model of people smuggling gangs.”

The Interior Ministry said in its statement accompanying the video on Wednesday that the arrests were “an important part of the plan to operate flights to Rwanda over the next 9 to 11 weeks,” calling it “another important milestone in the government's broader plan.” . Stop small boat crossings.

Sunak's government claims the law will deter anyone who might consider entering the UK without papers. The morning after the law was passed last week, five people died in a crush on an overcrowded refugee boat after it left a beach in France to cross the English Channel.

Both the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and the charity International Rescue Committee have condemned the policy, arguing that it breaches the UK's international obligations under multiple treaties on human rights and the rights of asylum seekers.

“The government's move to detain people is causing fear, distress and grave concern for men, women and children who have fled war and persecution to find safety in Britain,” Enver Solomon, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said. on Wednesday quoted by CBS News affiliate network BBC News.

He said the government should focus on “efficient and fair” processing of asylum claims rather than “headline-grabbing measures that waste time and resources.”

According to the BBC, the British government has so far paid Rwanda the equivalent of more than $300 million to fund the program, although no flights have yet taken off under the program.

While the UK currently spends an estimated $8 million a day on housing migrants who arrive in Britain without permission, the government's own cost estimate last summer showed that every single case handled under the Rwanda deportation program cost taxpayers would cost about $86,000 more than housing the migrant person in the UK.

CBS News' Haley Ott and Tucker Reals contributed to this report.