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Campaign and Labor groups have accused the Home Office of a lack of transparency even after the Windrush scandal because it refuses to say how many people of different nationalities have been deported from the UK after committing crimes in recent years.
The Home Office has repeatedly refused to provide deportation breakdowns by nationality, saying doing so could damage relations with other countries and could negatively affect immigration controls.
The explanation raised concerns among campaign groups, who said the only reason the information could affect relationships would be if it showed that certain nationalities were being disproportionately selected for elimination.
Deportations, particularly to Jamaica, have become an increasingly contentious topic in recent months, and some of the deportees have lived in the UK since they were children, or for many years, with close family ties.
Both Home Secretary Priti Patel and Boris Johnson have accused “activist lawyers” of launching spurious last-minute cases to thwart arrest flights, prompting warnings from the legal profession that such rhetoric could endanger to the lawyers.
The Guardian asked the Home Office under freedom of information laws to provide a breakdown by nationality of foreigners deported in the past five years under the UK Borders Act 2007, which requires deportation of nationals. incarcerated for 12 months or more.
By rejecting the request, the Home Office confirmed that it had the information, but would not do so, because doing so “could harm diplomatic relations between the UK and a foreign government”, and could “harm the functioning of immigration controls. “.
An internal review of the decision by the Interior Ministry confirmed the decision. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is now examining whether the data should be released.
Bishop Desmond Jaddoo, president of the National Windrush Organization, said the data would help “to develop a clear picture of the Home Office’s actions,” and with recommendations from a review on how British citizens of Caribbean origin long-established misguided immigration enforcement.
“The National Windrush Organization sees the transparency and accountability of the Home Office as a crucial element in building trust,” he said.
The Wendy Williams review said the Home Office had shown “institutional ignorance and lack of regard for the issue of race.”
It was commissioned after the Guardian report on how “hostile environment” immigration policy saw members of the Windrush generation unjustly deported, fired from their jobs and deprived of services like health care.
Holly Lynch, Labor’s shadow immigration minister, said the lack of transparency on this issue was unacceptable. She said: “The Windrush scandal has destroyed so much confidence that the government must provide greater transparency on such a critical issue.”
Bella Sankey, director of Detention Action, which campaigns on deportation flights, said: “This request for freedom of information is straightforward and should be totally indisputable to the Home Office.
“If the law applies equally to everyone, regardless of nationality, how could disclosures about the number of deportations possibly ‘harm relations’ with the countries to which the government is deporting? If Priti Patel has nothing to hide, then it has nothing to fear from a basic transparency request. “
Celia Clarke, director of Bail for Detained Immigrants, said there was “a general reluctance on the part of the Home Office to disclose vital information regarding deportations and expulsions.”
She said: “For the sake of transparency, the information requested under this FoI must, of course, be in the public domain; wrapping it in secrecy only leads to speculation as to why. It also makes it much more difficult to hold the Home Office accountable for its actions. “
The Interior Ministry said it regularly released data by nationality and other categories for forced returns, covering deportees after committing crimes, as well as other areas, such as violations of immigration rules, but would await the ICO’s decision sooner. to make more comments.
A spokesperson said: “We are committed to openness and transparency, which is why we publish a significant amount of data specifically on returns every quarter on gov.uk.”
