Image Credit: SAMEER AL-DOUMY / Contributor / Getty 
Britain’s under-pressure Labour government has added “deport now, appeal later” to its illegal migration toolbox—but there’s a flaw. Its new regime would only apply to 1.66% of ‘small boat’ migrants detained on arrival (and a handful of Foreign National Offenders, or FNOs: 12% of the prison population).
Officially, the
scheme will be nearly trebled from eight countries to 23, with foreign nationals from those countries … now expected to be deported to their home countries before they can appeal against that decision.
Lawyers permitting, this would mean criminals from Angola, Australia, Botswana, Brunei, Bulgaria, Canada, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Uganda and Zambia all being sent back, where they would have to conduct any appeals from those countries using video conference calls. The catch?
British prisons house insignificant numbers of such FNOs. Instead, the heavy hitters are Albania (11%), Poland (7%), Romania (7%), Ireland (7%) and Lithuania (3%). Likewise, small boat migrants, who break the law when crossing the English Channel, are very seldom from the countries adopting “deport now, appeal later” agreements with Britain.
It all looks like another gimmick cooked up by struggling Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
