Boris Johnson has said the UK could withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights to implement its plan to deport immigrants to Rwanda.
The prime minister made clear his frustration at the legal challenges being made to the controversial policy.
The government has come in for severe criticism ever since home secretary Priti Patel unveiled the policy in April.
The first deportation flight is due to take off this evening, but may only have a handful of asylum seekers on board as lawyers challenge the move in court.
Asked during a visit to the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire if it was time for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, the prime minister said all options were under review.
“The legal world is very good at picking up ways of trying to stop the government from upholding what we think is a sensible law,” he said.
“Will it be necessary to change some rules to help us as we go along? It very well may be. All these option are under constant review.”
Earlier, the PM said he will not be “deterred or abashed” by critics of the government’s plan to deport illegal immigrants to Rwanda.
Prince Charles and the leadership of the Church of England are among those to condemn the policy, which has been branded “immoral”.
But chairing a meeting of his cabinet this morning, the prime minister doubled down, insisting it was necessary to prevent the “dangerous and illegal” attempts to get to the UK across the English Channel.
The PM’s official spokesman said: “He said that we are not going to be in any way deterred or abashed by some of the criticism being directed at the UK’s partnership with Rwanda.”
He said there were some sitting round the cabinet table whose ancestors had come to the UK through “legal immigration”, which the government supported.
But the spokesman said it was important to distinguish that “from dangerous and illegal cross-Channel migration which the government intends to stop”.