Hundreds of migrants turn violent to avoid deportation, Home Office figures show
Hundreds of migrants due to be deported avoided being kicked out of the country… because they were too violent to be transported.
In the past three years, 602 people assigned for deportation ended up staying behind after battling with officials trying to remove them, Home Office data shows.
In 497 cases, there was violence when officials arrived to pick the person up. This could be at an immigration detention centre or their temporary home address.
The other 105 became aggressive when they were in transit to the airport, at the airport, or in some rare cases even on the plane.
A pilot can order a passenger to be “off-loaded” if there are fears for the safety of the flight.
On some occasions, the Home Office has to hire escort officers and charter its own planes to safely remove people from the country.
Those being deported may be foreign criminals being sent back to their home country after serving a sentence in the UK,
or immigrants who have had an asylum claim rejected.
In 2018, Somali rapist Yaqub Ahmed, then aged 30, began screaming in his seat as the jet was on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.
Other passengers on the Turkish Airlines aircraft leapt to his defence and demanded security guards remove him from the plane. He was eventually granted bail after the plane incident but was deported the following year.
In 2021, it was revealed the Home Office hired a 218-seat Airbus A321 to fly just one person back to France, accompanied by
14 security staff. Anyone officials believe could be disruptive can be handcuffed. Velcro leg restraints may also be used.
Figures for 2022 show the nationalities with the greatest numbers avoiding deportation due to violence were India (21), East Timor/Indonesia (14), Brazil (14), Ghana (10) and Romania (nine).
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “The data highlights the obstacles authorities face when trying to deport unwilling individuals only too aware of what will happen if they turn violent at the point of departure.
“But this phenomenon is hardly new. There is no excuse for the Government and officials not to have devised ways to remove people who might become aggressive.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The public rightly expects us to fix our asylum system.
“The Illegal Migration Bill will change the law so people who come to the UK illegally can be detained and swiftly returned to a safe third country or their home country. Staff are rigorously trained to ensure the safety of returnees in the removal process, including on the appropriate use of force.”
