Shock figures show failure to deport illegal immigrants and foreign criminals who WANT to go home
SHOCK figures lay bare the Government’s failure to boot out illegal immigrants and foreign criminals — even when they ask to go back home.
The number of migrants sent home after asking to be deported has plummeted by 40 per cent in a decade, Labour analysis claims.
Under the Voluntary Returns Service, migrants with no right to live in the UK who decide they wish to go home can get help.
But the number of removals processed by the Home Office has fallen from 31,762 in 2010 to 19,253 last year.
Labour believe it is due to Government “chaos”, not a drop in requests.
Home Office sources said they face challenges.
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Last week in the Commons, Labour MP Jessica Morden raised the case of a convicted sex offender waiting over three years to be returned to Iraq — despite offering to pay for his own flight.
Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: "The fact that failed asylum seekers and foreign national offenders who have volunteered to be deported are not being removed from the country due to Home Office delays shows the total chaos and incompetence plaguing the department under this Conservative government.
"They have broken the asylum system, bust the Home Office budget and badly undermined Britain’s border security."
A source close to Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “The stench of rank hypocrisy is rife in this Labour attack.
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“They have voted over a hundred times against Conservative measures to control immigration, and our borders. Nobody should trust Labour to tackle immigration. They have no plan to.”
The Home Office said: “The number of removals has steadily increased in recent years, with a combined 74 per cent increase in voluntary and enforced returns between 2022 and 2023.”