THE Home Secretary has announced there will be a “major surge” in deportations of asylum seekers and migrants.
In the next six months, the Labour Government is aiming to raise the number of deportations to levels not seen since 2018.
An announcement from the Home Office detailed how there will be an increase in immigration detention spaces to enable a “major" spike in returns.
Enver Solomon, of the Refugee Council, has said the UK Government is “wasting taxpayers’ money on expanding detention places".
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Instead of wasting taxpayers’ money on expanding detention places, the Government should be investing in what are called voluntary returns programmes.
“If you treat people with respect, humanity and support them to return, many more people return.
“Two-thirds of people who have their asylum claims rejected return voluntarily.
“The Government should be supporting them in the community to return and not building more detention places.”
Solomon also called for ministers to “look at state of the detention system”, stressing they needed to provide safe routes as a way to stop the boats.
“Detention is costly. It results in people harming themselves. It results in huge damage to people’s mental health," Solomon said.
It has also been confirmed that 100 new specialist intelligence officers and investigators are to be brought into the National Crime Agency this year to target criminal smuggling gangs, while a new intelligence-driven programme “will target employers profiting from hiring illegal workers”, with fines of up to £60,000 per worker, criminal prosecutions with maximum penalties of five-year jail sentences and business closure orders.
Over the next six months, Yvette Cooper has outlined that the Government has fresh plans to achieve the highest rate of removals of those “with no right to be here” for five years.
Nearly 300 extra places are to be created at two immigration removal centres to “support the higher pace of removals”, the Home Office said. Officials are also studying options for further expansions of detention capacity, which currently stands at 2300.
Some 300 Home Office caseworkers have already been re-deployed since the election to track down, detain and return illegal migrants.
Cooper (above) said she wanted to introduce a "better-controlled" system to replace "the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long".
She said: “We are taking strong and clear steps to boost our border security and ensure the rules are respected and enforced. Our new Border Security Command is already gearing up, with new staff being urgently recruited and additional staff already stationed across Europe.
“They will work with European enforcement agencies to find every route into smashing the criminal smuggling gangs organising dangerous boat crossings which undermine our border security and put lives at risk.
“And by increasing enforcement capabilities and returns, we will establish a system that is better controlled and managed, in place of the chaos that has blighted the system for far too long.”
The extra 290 detention spaces would be created at immigration removal centres at Campsfield in Kidlington, Oxfordshire, and Haslar in Gosport, Hampshire.
MPs including John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, and Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, signed a Commons motion opposing the “inhumane” detention of migrants at the centres.
The Home Office said there had already been nine flights returning migrants since Labour came to power, including the biggest-ever chartered removal flight of 200 illegal migrants.
New returns agreements have been signed with Vietnam, which has accounted for the biggest rise in Channel migrants, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Serbia and Georgia following the fast-track removal deal with Albania.
