Delay in deportation of foreign criminals costs Britain £60m
by Harleen Kaur - February 5, 2010
United Kingdom, February 5: Nearly hundreds of foreign offenders kept in detention centers are costing Britain nearly £60m annually, latest figures reveal.
Presently, Britain gets about 1,250 foreign offenders lodged up in different immigration detention centers each month and all such foreign criminals have completed their jail sentences. However, due to delays caused by bureaucratic system, these criminals are not deported out of the country.
And the result is that they enjoy the facilities meant for failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants in the detention centers, which is proving to be a costly affair for the country. Allowing them to stay in such facilities costs £47,500 annually which costs £10,000 in excess
of the costs involved in keeping such offenders in a prison.
This delay in deportation of foreign offenders to their respective countries is a big mockery of the promises made by Prime Minister Gordon Brown that each foreign criminal will be deported at the earliest once he completes his sentence in Britain.
After being sworn in as UK’s Prime Minister in July 2007, Gordon Brown has clearly issued orders that any immigrant involved in a crime will face severe consequences and will be deported out of the country immediately.
But, the shadow immigration minister, Damian Green, alleged that despite the promises by the government, the immigration system smells of big loopholes since Britain’s immigration detention centers still have nearly one thousand foreign criminals languishing in such centers.
Ministers are tough only in making rules, not in using them, and this is causing a lot of wastage not only of public funds but also the country to increased dangers. The reason is that majority of fires and rioting in the detention centers is the handiwork of such criminals.
However, the UK immigration minister Phil Woolas defended the stand of the government saying nearly 5,400 foreign criminals had been deported in the year 2008, which is a record deportation figure.
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