Home Office says record number of refused asylum seekers deported since July
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Labour’s description of 16,400 ‘immigration offenders and foreign criminals’ angers campaigners. Keir Starmer has boasted of deporting a record number of refused asylum seekers and overseas criminals since scrapping the Rwanda scheme, using language that has dismayed human rights campaigners.
The Home Office said on Thursday it had returned more than 16,400 “immigration offenders and foreign criminals” since the election in July, the highest six-month total since 2018. The department said in a statement that enforced returns were up 24% compared with the previous 12 months. Since July, 2,580 of those removed had been convicted criminals from overseas – a 23% increase on last year, it said.
Starmer suggested quick returns provided a deterrent that was better than the “wasteful” Rwanda scheme, which would have cost £600m to remove 300 people to Kigali. “For the individuals that are being smuggled, the disincentive is you’re wasting your money, and if you get to the UK, you’re going to be returned to where you came from,” he said. “I’m really pleased that the figures for the last six months show record numbers of people being returned, 16,400 people who should not be in the UK.
“It’s the highest number now for six or seven years, because this government has prioritised making sure that we are returning people who shouldn’t be here, not wasting our time on things like the Rwanda scheme, which wasn’t working.”. James Wilson, the director of the NGO Detention Action, said: “It’s deeply concerning to see the government use such dehumanising language about people seeking asylum and other migrants.
