Some short points about the law behind the #Jamaica50 deportation flight last night. The law wasn’t always like this: it was changes in 2007, 2012 and 2014 that lead to even those born in the UK or brought here as children being exiled to countries they do not know. 1/?
Deportation law was until 2006 fairly flexible. It gave huge discretion to the Home Secretary and it was generally serious criminals with weak connections to the UK who were deported. That changed for short term political reasons.
The deportation scandal that cost Home Secretary Charles Clarke his job was caused by administrative failings at the Home Office. Serious criminals were being released without even being considered for deportation by officials. It wasn’t deportation law that was at fault.
To shift the blame, Blair pledged to change the law even though the law was not to blame. The UK Borders Act 2007 introduced ‘automatic’ deportation for any foreign national criminal sentenced to more than 12 months. The main exception was if human rights would be breached.
Judges allowed some cases on human rights grounds where the criminal had close connections to the UK. Theresa May didn’t like this, lied about cats being enough to prevent deportation and changed the rules in 2012 to introduce very narrow exceptions.
For good measure she then put these narrow exceptions into the Immigration Act 2014. Deportation law now look like this: 
The problem with narrowly defined exceptions is that life is full of variety. It eliminates common sense and simple humanity from decision making. Leading to absurdly harsh results and the exile of mainly black and minority ethnic people who are functionally British.
Finally, deportation law wasn’t always like this. Things aren’t always getting better. But the law can be and must be changed again. It is time to scrap automatic deportation and bring back some humanity into the decision making process.
For those who want to know more about deportation and other aspects of our immigration and nationality system, I’m publishing a general interest book about it all this July. Sign up for further details here mailchi.mp/bafce247d1a8/h…
