Kemi Badenoch says leaving the European Convention on Human Rights will not solve Britain’s migration crisis.
The Tory leadership frontrunner warned immigration lawyers, who are using the convention to fight deportation orders, would target other areas of law to block removals.
She warned the UK has a “problem with culture and with people”.
Mrs Badenoch added that Home Office staff “want to look after people, they want to help them”, adding “we need to make sure those people work in charities”.
She told GB News: “We should be deporting people more than we are now.
“What worries me, is we will say we will leave the ECHR, and I’m not against leaving the ECHR, but the problem still continues.
“I’m tired of politicians saying ‘we’re going to do this thing and that thing doesn’t happen.
“Even if we left the ECHR, I don’t think it would solve the real problem which is the people that are manning the borders, the people in the Home Office, don’t want to do this work.
“The messages on the staff messageboards, the staff networks, they want to look after people, they want to help them. We need to make sure those people work in charities, not in the Home Office.
“I do think there is a large number of people who want to do something else.
“It is more than just the deportations, you have to refuse first. If you are just saying yes, before you say anything else, then you are not going to deport them.
“They are reading sentences in the treaty with a bigger and bigger scope. We’re going to have to look at a lot of the legal activism.
“If you left the ECHR today, there would just be another law that they would be reading like that. We have a problem with culture and with people.”
Asylum accommodation costs have rocketed over the last four years, with the bill per person rising by 141%.
Even with inflation factored in, the cost went up from £17,000 in 2019 to £41,000 in 2023, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The cost compares to the average boarding school fee of £42,000.
Lucy Mort, a senior research fellow at the IPPR, said: “The asylum accommodation system is costing far too much while failing to provide people fleeing war and persecution with the safe, clean environments they need.”
The total cost of the asylum system is expected to hit £4.7 billion this year – up from £739 million in 2019.
The think tank said that despite the staggering rise in costs, the accommodation is often unsanitary and of a low quality.
Most of the money was spent on hotels, with the bill totalling £3.1 billion.
Former Cabinet Secretary Mrs Badenoch is vying with Robert Jenrick for the Tory crown, with bookmakers expecting her to be victorious on November 2.
But unlike her rival Mr Jenrick, who has repeatedly trumpeted the need to tackle illegal migration and leave the ECHR, specific policies are not that important to Ms Badenoch at the moment.
Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, who is supporting Mr Jenrick, said: “We’re dealing with a global migration crisis, and as a Conservative Party, we’ve been grappling with this issue for several years now, and I think there’s one candidate who does stand out through… his conviction by resigning on principle from the Cabinet over the government’s failure to deliver on immigration, but also through his subsequent plans and observations on how we actually address the proble.”