Tens of thousands of illegal migrants will be granted asylum in the UK after Yvette Cooper scraps Rwanda scheme.
The interior minister said she would allow officials to process applications from 120,000 people who the previous government said would never be allowed to settle here.
The Refugee Council has said this could grant asylum to 70,000 people, but the Conservatives estimate the figure could rise to 90,000.
Former Home Secretary James Cleverly accused Ms Cooper of introducing an “effective amnesty” which would only encourage more people to risk the perilous journey across the Channel.
But Ms Cooper told MPs the law change would save the taxpayer £7.7 billion by reducing the cost of housing asylum seekers, adding that only a “small minority” could have been sent to Rwanda.
The Home Secretary said all those who could be safely returned to their home countries would be sent back, with deportation flights starting this week.
But thousands of them come from countries like Syria and Afghanistan, which are considered too dangerous to return in most cases.
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Ms Cooper also admitted that the high number of small boat crossings “is likely to persist into the summer”.
Official figures show 2,258 migrants have arrived since Labour took power less than three weeks ago.
Mr Cleverly accused Ms Cooper of acting for “ideological reasons” in abandoning the Rwandan project, “removing a deterrent that the National Crime Agency said we needed”.
He also mocked the interior minister’s plan to create a new border security command to tackle smuggling gangs, saying the same function already existed.
“The Labour Party has granted an effective amnesty to thousands of asylum seekers who had been banned under the Tory plans,” he said.
“Labour’s plans amount to less than what the Tories did when we were in government, simply changing the signs above a few Home Office offices with its so-called Border Security Command and Returns Unit.”
Mr Cleverly said Labour’s decision to abandon the Rwanda programme left Britain without a safe third country to which people could be deported.
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He added: “Where will the Home Secretary send people from countries like Afghanistan, Iran and Syria? Has she started negotiating return deals with the Taliban, the Ayatollahs of Iran or Assad in Syria?”
“If she is not going to send to Rwanda everyone who arrives here on a small boat, to which local authorities will she send them?”
But Ms Cooper branded the Rwanda project a failure and a costly one, saying the Tories had spent £700m on it and managed to send only four voluntary migrants.
She claimed forecasts showed the project could ultimately cost £10bn – and said she had informed the Rwandan government it would be halted immediately.
Under the Illegal Immigration Act passed last year, anyone who has arrived in the UK illegally since March 2018 is no longer eligible to have their asylum claim considered. The law has led to a sharp increase in the backlog of cases, estimated at 120,000.
According to research by the Refugee Council, the average asylum grant rate was 62% last year. A similar rate would allow more than 70,000 migrants to be granted asylum.
Council chief executive Enver Solomon said Labour had inherited an “untenable” situation, adding: “It is essential that we take care to consider each case on its merits and not assume that every person in a particular country should not be afforded protection.”
