WITHAM MP Priti Patel has come under fire from human rights campaigners after government plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda were slammed as "shockingly ill-conceived".

Steve Valdez-Symonds, Amnesty International UK's Refugee and Migrant Rights Director, added that the African nation had a "dismal human rights record".

In a statement to the PA news agency, Mr Valdez-Symonds said: "Sending people to another country for asylum 'processing' is the very height of irresponsibility and shows how far removed from humanity and reality the Government now is on asylum issues.

"The Government is already wrecking our asylum system at huge cost to the taxpayer while causing terrible anxiety to the people stuck in the backlogs it has created."

"But this shockingly ill-conceived idea will go far further in inflicting suffering while wasting huge amounts of public money."

It comes as the UK announced today (April 14) it had struck a deal with Rwanda to see migrants making illegal journeys to the UK have their asylum claim processed in the African nation.

It is claimed the plans will also disrupt the business model of people-smuggling gangs.

The estimated cost of the arrangement between Rwanda and the UK is about £120 million.

However, some have criticised the move as also a way of distracting people from the ongoing partygate scandal.

Boris Johnson criticised the "rank unfairness" of the current asylum system, which he claimed is being exploited by men entering via small boat crossings at the expense of women and children.

The global migration crisis requires "new world-leading solutions", the Home Secretary Priti Patel has added.

Speaking at a press conference Rwanda, Priti Patel said: "There are an estimated 80 million people displaced in the world, and the global approach to asylum and migration is broken.

"Evil people smugglers and their criminal gangs are facilitating people into Europe, resulting in the loss of life, and costs to the UK taxpayer.

"The UK asylum system is collapsing under a combination of real humanitarian crises and evil people smugglers profiteering by exploiting the system for their own gains.

"Putting evil people smugglers out of business is a moral imperative. It requires us to use every tool at our disposal and also to find new solutions."