Murderers rapists and drug lords will be easier to throw out
KILLErS, rapists, drug lords and other EU criminals will be easier to deport after Brexit, according to a leaked home office paper.
Under the proposals ministers would ditch Brussels rules exploited by offenders.
Citizens from elsewhere in the world who are jailed for more than 12 months face automatic deportation. They can also be stopped at the border or thrown out if they are a persistent offender.
But an EU citizen can be excluded from the UK only if they pose ‘ a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat’ to society and the public – a much higher threshold.
British judges have taken this to mean that anyone who does not pose an immediate threat should not normally be sent home.
EU citizens who have lived in the UK for more than five years may be removed only on ‘serious grounds of public policy and public security’. more than ten years of residency requires ‘imperative grounds of public security’.
The home office paper suggests that – after Brexit – all foreign citizens would be treated in the same way. And the new rules would make it simpler to deny visas to EU criminals, extremists or other troublemakers.
It says EU rules are ‘less strict, certain and predictable’ than min-
‘Vital to have strong borders’
isters would like and changing them would ‘ improve the safety and security of the UK’.
Politicians welcomed the proposals, citing the critical terror threat.
Tory mP Charlie Elphicke said: ‘With recent events across Europe it’s more vital than ever that we have strong borders. That means stopping criminals from EU nations coming to Britain. And any foreign offenders that pose a threat should be deported. Deportation for foreign criminals should mean out of prison, out of the country.’
Tightening up the rules would ensure the authorities were notified about EU convicts before they set foot on our shores.
In a notorious case, Latvian builder Arnis Zalkalns was allowed into the UK despite having served seven years in jail in his home country for killing his wife.
he moved here in 2007 and went on to murder 14-year- old Alice Gross in August 2014.
It would also allow the deportation of Learco Chindamo, who came from Italy aged six with his mother and two brothers.
In 1995 he murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence, stabbing him when he went to help a pupil.
In 2007, the high Court ruled he could not be booted out because he no longer posed a ‘genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat’.
measures outlined in the leaked 82-page document would aim to prevent thousands of European offenders from coming into the country. ministers will set out in domestic legislation that it is in Britain’s interests to treat EU and non-EU criminals in the same way. The paper says: ‘Leaving the EU allows us to create a single, consistent approach to criminality across the immigration system. EU rules require that a person’s conduct must represent a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat before he or she can be deported.
‘They do not specify the length of imprisonment or specific behaviour which may result in the refusal of entry, exclusion or deportation of an EU citizen from the UK. UK rules for nonEU nationals are both more specific and stricter.’
The document adds: ‘The application of the EU public policy is less certain and predictable in practice than we would like.’
Latest figures showed there were 9,756 foreign inmates in prisons in England and Wales – around one in nine of the total.