UK to Deport Indians Before Appeals Under Expanded ‘Deport Now, Appeal Later’ Scheme

The U.K. government announced on Sunday that Indian citizens serving a prison sentence in the U.K. where they have an outstanding asylum appeal and are being detained under the controversial ‘deport, now, appeal later’ policy will be deported prior to the completion of the asylum process.

A second policy that was announced at the weekend would have enabled the British government to deport a lot of foreign nationals as soon as they have been convicted of a crime instead of making them serve 30 percent of the sentences in the country.

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The figure of nations affected by the wider use of the deport now appeal later policy has grown with countries under the extended ‘deport now, appeal later policy growing incrementally to 23, as Y.K. Home Office declared early on Sunday night. A foreign national whose human rights claims have been rejected will lose the right to remain in U.K. as he appeals the case and will be able to be present in the appeals process online in the home states by video linking.

Some of the additional countries to the list include India, Australia, Canada and Bulgaria. Angola, Botswana, Brunei, Guyana, Indonesiaand Kenya, Latvia, Lebanon, Malaysia, Uganda and Zambiain addition to the rest of the countries brought the list to thirteen. The government data taken on June 30, 2024, showed that there were 273 Indian prisoners in England and Wales. U.K. prisons have 12 percent of foreign nationals in them.

Mr Starmer is trying to ratchet up the squeeze on both illegal and legal migration to the U.K. as Labour party government is faced by the growing relevancy of the far-right nativist Reform U.K party which, in the June 1 local elections, won more seats than any other party, overtaking Conservatives and sounding alarm bells within Labour.

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“We are leading diplomatic efforts to increase the number of countries where foreign criminals can be swiftly returned, and if they want to appeal, they can do so safely from their home country,” U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said about the ‘deport now, appeal later’ policy.

Over-crowding in prisons is also one of the issues to which British government is seeking to respond. On Sunday, the Justice Ministry said that alien criminals will be subjected to deportation the moment they are found guilty and may not have another chance to enter U.K. Reducing the time that foreign nationals would spend in U.K. prisons before deportation had already been undertaken by the government which had brought down the figure of 50 percent of the sentence to 30 percent. This would be a law that would be effective in September. The new policy would not apply to life sentences, which include acts of terrorism and murder because the convicts would have to serve their term within the U.K.

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