A divisive Home Office flight to Rwanda tomorrow now faces taking barely 10 asylum seekers - if it takes off at all, it is understood.
It is thought the number of people due to be on the charter plane has shrunk dramatically after a wave of individual legal challenges.
It was initially reported 130 people could be on the plane. But by last night that had shrunk to just over 10, a government source told the Mirror. The source predicted that, by the time of the next update this morning, the number would be less than 10.
The BBC reported the number could be "whittled down to zero" before the plane is due to take off. Individual legal challenges relate to human rights and issues like modern slavery, according to the broadcaster.
Separately, lawyers for refugees and migrants will launch a Court of Appeal bid today to block tomorrow’s first flight entirely - until a full legal challenge can be held.
The appeal has been brought by the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), which represents more than 80% of Border Force staff, along with the Care4Calais and Detention Action charities.
The organisations failed in a High Court bid to get an injunction on Friday.
A second overarching case is due to be heard in the High Court today after Asylum Aid, a refugee charity, applied for an urgent interim injunction.
Over the weekend a source at the Home Office - which defeated a High Court bid for an injunction on Friday - told the Mirror the flight will leave “even if only one migrant is on the plane”.
Boris Johnson appeared to hit back at Prince Charles today after the heir to the throne was claimed to have branded his Rwanda asylum plan “appalling”.
The Prime Minister repeatedly dodged answer whether the Prince of Wales was “wrong” in alleged private comments about the policy.
But he pointedly said “most people” could see criminal gangs “need to be stopped”.
And asked a final time directly if the Prince of Wales was wrong, he replied: “I’ve answered that in the sense that I do think it’s the job of government to stop people breaking the law and to support people who are doing the right thing.
“That’s what we’re doing.”
Under the policy, migrants who arrived “illegally” on dinghies or fridge trucks since January 1 will be detained then forced onto charter flights, like those used to deport foreign criminals.
They will be “removed” with a one-way ticket almost 5,000 miles away to Rwanda.
Once there they will be barred from claiming asylum in Britain, instead having to ask the east African nation for sanctuary.
Rwanda's high commissioner Johnston Busingye today told The Telegraph Rwanda will be a "safe haven" for migrants, after claims Prince Charle said the policy was "appalling" in private.
Mr Busingye, writing in the paper, said: "Disappointingly much of the discussion has either questioned our motives for entering the partnership or doubted our ability to provide safe haven to those in need - as was the case in Friday's legal proceedings."
He went on: "There's no doubt that we are a work in progress, every country is, but the Rwanda of today is unrecognisable from the country the world was introduced to in 1994."
Cabinet minister Brandon Lewis told the BBC : "This is a policy that is going to deliver to ensure that modern slavery and these people smugglers know that their criminal methods will be broken down.
“We've got to do that in a proper, legal, managed way and people who are encouraging you to travel illegally are wrong, and we're going to break their business model."
But the PCS union said civil servants should be allowed not to work on the scheme until a later court hearing into whether it’s unlawful.
General secretary Mark Serwotka told Sky's Sophy Ridge on Sunday programme: "Imagine if you're a civil servant now in the Home Office.
“[You go] to work because you want to see a humane immigration system where people are treated fairly and we comply with our international obligations.
"Imagine if you're told to do something on Tuesday, that in July is subsequently found to be illegal. That would be an appalling situation.
“If Priti Patel had any respect, not just for the desperate people who come to this country, but for the workers she employs, she would not ask a single one of them to be part of any deportation of any asylum seeker, until at least these cases are heard in court for the full legality judgment, which will be in July."
Priti Patel could rip up the Tories’ own modern slavery laws to allow more removal flights to Rwanda in future.
The Home Secretary will appoint an independent reviewer of the system pioneered by her predecessor Theresa May, according to the Mail on Sunday.
When she launched the Modern Slavery Act in 2015, Mrs May said it was “the great human rights issue of our time” adding: “We will make it a national and international mission to rid our world of this barbaric evil.”
