Home Office thwarted in bid to deport 10 more migrants
AN ATTEMPT to deport 10 Channel migrants alongside 14 of the most dangerous foreign offenders in the UK was thwarted yesterday by last-minute legal challenges over human rights and modern slavery.
A Home Office chartered flight had been scheduled to return the 10 migrants to Italy before flying on to Lithuania with 14 criminals, including a murderer jailed for life, a robber sentenced to nine years in jail and two others responsible for 64 violence, drug and theft offences.
Italy had agreed to accept the 10 migrants under the Dublin agreement that requires asylum claims to be processed in the first EU country where they had arrived.
However, last minute appeals by the migrants’ lawyers saw the Home Office forced to abandon attempts to deport five because of human rights claims, four because they claimed to be victims of traffickers who had brought them to the UK and one for other legal reasons.
It came as Border Force boats yesterday intercepted 56 migrants as they tried to cross the Channel.
The chartered flight was the third occasion on which the Home Office has been forced to cancel the return of migrants to Europe. On a previous occasion, a flight took off with just one of the 29 asylum seekers due to be deported.
Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, said: “Once again our efforts to facilitate entirely legitimate and legal returns were frustrated by legal claims. We know that such claims usually go on to fail after they have been given full legal consideration.
“These issues show that our asylum system is broken, which is why I am
‘We know that such claims usually go on to fail after they have been given full legal consideration’
introducing a fairer and firmer system.”
Meanwhile, Ms Patel lost a deportation fight with a Nigerian immigrant jailed for drug offences. The man, now 32, mounted a challenge to a deportation order, arguing that deportation would disproportionately interfere with the human rights of his partner and two children, and three Court of Appeal judges ruled in his favour.
Lord Justice Moylan, Lord Justice Baker and Lord Justice Popplewell, who published a written ruling yesterday after a trial in July, considered the case after immigration tribunal hearings.