Home Office

Deportation is a cruel punishment for ex-offenders and their families

Letters: Treating other countries as receptacles for unwanted individuals does little to enhance the UK’s global image, says Trista Selous. Plus, a letter from Bernard Besserglik

People whose offences took place years ago and who have lived within the law ever since are not “dangerous foreign criminals”, and it is disgusting to see them labelled as such by the government (Home Office charter flights for deportations cost £12,000 per person, 13 February). The blanket approach of deporting ex-offenders who grew up in the UK but were never naturalised amounts to a second punishment – for the individuals and their British families. It is cruel, and its impact on the financial security and mental health of those involved may rebound on the rest of society.

It would be interesting to hear Jamaican views of this policy. Were they consulted? The only obvious use of these deportations is for propaganda – the British government is “doing something about immigration”. The deportations also cast a harsh light on the government’s refusal to take responsibility for the British citizen Shamima Begum, on the grounds that she has a right to (but not actual) citizenship of another country that she has never been to and doesn’t want her.

The fact that the UK is not the only country that high-handedly assumes it can deport unwanted citizens or leave them to rot in “camps” overseen by some unspecified authority – the Kurds, the Syrians, perhaps eventually a reformed Daesh, who cares? – does not make it a viable stance. Treating other countries as receptacles for unwanted individuals, as both the above policies do, does little to enhance the UK’s global image and, now that we are “standing alone” post-Brexit, will do us no favours.
Trista Selous
London

• Might it not be a salutary experience for Home Office officials to be required, before assuming their duties on residence issues, to spend a six-month period fending for themselves alone in Jamaica (Minister defends deporation flight decision, 10 February)?
Bernard Besserglik
Pantin, France

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