The Future of Deportation Policy

Sky News, the full story first He led one of Britain's most notorious Grimming gangs. He was stripped of his British citizenship, and yet, Shabir Ahmed cannot be deported once released from jail. This is why. How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup Do airPods herald the arrival of a new global order LED lights say about the future of humanity I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside This is economics told through the things we think we understand Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow Just a warning. onn today's episode, we will be discussing grooming gangs, rape, sexual abuse and coercive control Shavby Aammittt was the ring leader of the Rochdale Grooming Gang, a man convicted of horrific sexual offences against vulnerable girls, some as young as twelve He was jailed, he was stripped of his British citizenship and his victims believed that when his sentence was over He'd be sent back to Pakistan. But they've been told he cannot be deported just as Ahmed is released from prison It is only by facing up fully and unflinchingly So what happened all of its horrifying detail that we can be sure of bringing about the whole system culture change that is necessary on this critically important issue. Now that was soon to be Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaking back in twenty twenty four when of course he was made of Greater Manchester. His point then was about the failures that left young girls at the mercy of abusers like Ammet. But it raises other questions for Burnham as much for the rest of us. we are to face up fully and unflinchingly to what happened in Rochdale What do we do with the man convicted of leading that abuse when the law says he can't be deported. And why do we find it so difficult to get rid of some of the most serious foreign born offenders, even when ministers, victims, and plenty of the public believe they should have no right to remain here? Joshua Rosenberg is a lawyer, journalist, and legal affairs commentator Joshua' always great to have you on the podcast when we're discussing subjects like this. I wonder though if we can just start with Shabir Aammid himself. Just remind us who he is and the extent of his cral I think the extent of his criminality is demonstrated by the fact that he got twenty two years in prison. That was in august twenty twelve. You don't serve the full amount passed by a court, but he has been in prison since then He was the leader of a grooming gang in Rchdale. The gang gained the trust of their victims by offering takeaway food, cigarettes, later pllied them with alcohol before repeatedly raping them the jury heard that he had treated one victim as a possession and that this girl had been abused on an almost weekly basis and a survivor identified O as Ruby to maintain her anonymity said that she was scared for her safety and her kids' safety. and she said that this man, the main ringleader is coming out of prison. He's well known in Rochdale, Olderman, Middleton. so he has a chance to talk to people and that made her feel unsafe. And you can only imagine what his victims will be feeling at his rele from prison but that is what is happening. And as you say, he is being released before the end of the full sentence. So presumably there are conditions attached to that release. There are certainly conditions attached such as a curfew. and this is something that government ministers have been stressing. If he strays, if he doesn't behave, then he could be recalled to prison serve the rest of his sentence quite apart from any criminal offensces he might be convicted of. So you can be sure that if it's possible to keep an eye on people through tagging, through checking people's homes, through appointments at a probation officer, that sort of thing, well, the authorities are going to do everything they can to make sure that he doesn't re offffend So explain exactly why this horrific individual will not be on a plane back to Pakistan. as clearly at least for a time was the plan. I don't know whether it was a plan or not because it was always known that he was entitled to claim an exemption Under the Immigration Act nineteen seventy one, which was passed at a time when plenty of people had come to the United Kingdom from Commonwealth countries, settled here. There weren't restrictions on entry, there weren't so many formalities. And it was thought that people who had been settled here permanently resident in the UK for five years should have certain exemptions from laws. Now two of those laws would apply in this case. One of them is the ability under the Imigration Act to deport somebody who's not a British citizen if the Home Secretary thinks that his deportation is conducive to the public So she can throw somebody out if they're not a British citizen, if she thinks that they really shouldn't be here in the UK. And the other one might apply after somebody is convicted, it's possible for a judge to recommend somebody for deportation when sentence is passed. Now that didn't happen in this case as far as I know because of the exceptions which say that you're not liable to deportation, you're not liable to be thrown out of the country is not conducive to the public good because you have been in the country for five years or in the case of somebody sent to prison in the five years preceding your prison sentence, and that seems to apply to Sapir Arme. I think we can both understand why there is considerable public outrage and public interest in this But if the intention was not to deport or indeed the authorities were aware that there was going to be this this legal hurdle legal barricade in fact, What was the purpose then of stripping him of of his citizenship? That's a very good question. and as you rightly say, he originally had British citizenship and that was taken away from him I suppose that means that he doesn't get benefits in the way that British people do. He can't claim to have a British passport, that sort of thing. So if he were to leave the United Kingdom voluntarily, he wouldn't be able to come back. It's maybe just a mark of disapproval of this But you're absolutely right. and it seems that people were led to believe that he might be deported. We don't know for sure that this is the law that applies, but what's been reported is that families have been told about this provision in the Immigration Act, and that is the explanation that's apparently been given for the fact that he doesn't seem to be eligible for deportation. If Amed is not to be deported, are there any means by which he can be kept in custody We know that home office officials are scurrying around looking for something. You might have thought that if this applied, and given that they knew that this high profile release was coming up so much so that they were able to tell the victims and their families that they might have taken advantage of any provision that they could find But we wait to see. They certainly haven't announced anything officially I think there has to be a reason for detaining somebody. Obviously, he hasn't done anything during the period while he was in prison, hasn't committed any further criminal offences or anything like that. And although people are released early under various statutory provisions, that is seen as an entitlement And I don't think it's possible to say, well, we don't like this person, you're going to stay in prison longer. The UK is in a curious place right now, twwixt two prime ministers. We haveve heard from Andy Burnham, the man that everyone is assuming will be the next one that he will do everything possible to get this man out of the country What might that be short of repealing those particular parts of the immmigration Act seventy one. Well he hasn't said and to be fair to him, all he's saying is that he's going to ask members of Kir Starmer's government. if there's anything that they can do That's perfectly reasonable, but you're absolutely right to say that in a few weeks time he may well be in a position to do something. Now I don't know what the government is going to tell him, but if there's a thought of perhaps changing the law particularly in this one case Well that might run into difficulties because the fact is he was given a lengthy prison sentence as his punishment for these very serious crimes. Deportation would be an additional punish for the crimes and we're talking about what's called retrospectiveg legislation that looks back, we would be talking about imposing a punishment that wasn't in existence at the time of the crime. Now, that's regarded as unfair. It's also contrary to Article seven of the Human Rights Convention, which says that you mustn't be punished more severely after the event It's simply not fair to change the rules retrospectively. And if you were to change the rules for him, well how would that apply to others in a similar position? Where would you stop? Would you say that other members of the grooming gangs ought to face harsher penalties because we don't like the fact that he was sentenced to a finite sentence and he's Let out I think this requires quite a lot of thought if the government is to go down this road. But whenever, you know the public discourse collides with the judicial process in this fashion, we do tend to oversimplify things. So when people suggest, look, there is a law that is preventing him from being deported, scrap that law, get him on a plane. It just isn't as simple as that It isn't as simple as that because you have to think of the wider implications. And there's also the very important point that if we were to put him on a plane to Pakistan The Pakistani authorities might not let him off that plane. Why would they? Why would they want him there? I don't know whether he still even has Pakistani nationality himself. He would be stateless. Certainly, the impression one has is that Pakistani is not going to welcome him back. So that's a practical problem as well. It is a practical difficulty that the government faces. What we haven't had, as far as I know, is any clear statement of the government's position. Now they tend not to speak about individual cases in circumstances like this But I do think it's reasonable to expect the government to at least brief journalists in detail about the circumstances of this case if and when he is released. because I think the public wants to know and they want to know why, if it is the case, it may be too difficult to do anything about it. I mean, over the past few years, we have seen a number profile deportation attempts which have failed, which have not been directly linked to the Immigration Act seventy one. What are the ways in which a foreign national criminal can resist being sent home? I think we've both kind of nodded already to the ECHR, the European Convention on Human Rights. By chance, the government published a bill only two days ago to amend the way in which Article eight of the Human Rights Convention is interpreted in the courts here in the United Kingdom. Now Article eight guarantees a right to respect to private and family life And in one or two cases, individuals have said, look, I have a family here I have a child here. I have a child who has special needs. I have a child who doesn't speak Albanian, for example, because he hasn't been brought up in Albania, even though his parents are Albanian. And it would be damaging to that child if I, the father, was sent back to my own country Article eight of the Human Rights Convention has been used by people facing deportation to say this would be a breach of their rights. Now what the government is doing in the immmigration asylum bill, published this week is tightening the interpretation of Article eight to try to limit the scope of the people who can claim protection under Article eight, family members, people like that, in order to the government says, keep the interpretation of the Human Rights Convention, Article eight in line with the interpretation of the Human Rights Ct. because as you know The government is committed to the United Kingdom remaining a member of the Human Rights Convention, and the government is committed to observing rulings by the humuman rightights Court. What it thinks is that our own courts, tribunals here in the United Kingdom are going too far. and that's also one of the reasons why it wants to replace the tribunal system with a new system of adjudicators. But until it ends up on the statute books I mean, currently, is it the case that Article E essentially gives anyone who has children a right to challenge that deportation and probably have a fair expectation that deportation will not take place? Yes, it certainly gives people a right to challenge it. And one of the concerns of the government is that takes far too long By the time it's sorted out in various appeals, it might be too late to do anything about it. What their chances are, we don't know. The government has made its position very clear, even without changing the law, that might have an impact on the tribunal judges. It's certainly going to take several months a year or more to get this legislation through, and then they've got to set up this new system of adjudicators, recruit adjudicators to do the work and so on and that might take a year or two. This is all going to take some time. And in the meantime lawyers are perfectly entitled to put arguments to the tribunal system which they think are proper to put forward on behalf of a client. But are those people who view this process as fatally flawed already? Are they wrong to say that in the examples that we've been talking about already public safety is less of a priority than the individual criminals' rights to under Article eight, you know respect for their private and family life. because that I think is the thing that sticks in the craw for most people I can see why people feel that. It's very easy to say, you know, we don't like that person. kick him out that lead to all sorts of consequences. There are political parties, as you know, who say that that should be an approach that we should take. There are others who say that if somebody has lived in this country and has established citizenship in this country or even established residence in this country and has paid a price for a crime well It's not necessarily appropriate to try and throw them out of the country How does a banana trigger a CIA backed coup Two airPods herald the arrival of a new global order What do LED lights say about the future of humanity I'm Ed Conway, and in each episode of my new podcast, Stuff Matters, I take an object, crack it open, and reveal the world shaping forces hidden inside This is economics told through the things we think we understand. Search Stuff Matters on your podcast app to listen and follow Navist I certainly don't want to rel litigate every single one of the deportation cases that has appeared on the front pages of the newspapers because there have been plenty over the past few years. Some of them, at least at first glance, do look ridiculous, do look egregious Clevis Disher was an Albanian national who was not returned to his country because reportedly His son didn't like foreign chicken nuggets. Now I suspect that it was a bit more complicated than that It was much more complicated. That was one of the arguments that was put and in fact first instance that argument was thrown out. But when the case came before the upper tribunal, the appeal tribunal, the judge said that a move to Albania would undo the progress that C the child has made over the years with ongoing dedicated support from his school and parents. the question really is whether this child should be punished for the behavior of his father or whether he should have a chance to get the education that he needs or send back to Albania where he might even do the same as his father did. These are complicated cases the government obviously has a duty to protect us all. Because of course, this is quite clearly a legal issue, but simultaneously it's a massive political one and of late the political shorthand has become The European Convention on Human Rights stops us from deporting foreign criminals. How accurate is that? I don't think it's accurate, but the government's position, I think the government is right on this is that The way in which some of these cases have been interpreted by the courts here in the United Kingdom have made it difficult. Don't forget these cases, if they get to the Human Rights Ct, that takes five years usually, and most of them don't get there. mostost of them are thrown out filtered out by the court before they get anywhere near a decision. So we're really talking about how these cases are handled here in the United Kingdom And it is perfectly possible for the government to change the law. That's the bill that was presented to Parliament this week in order to make it less likely that these human rights claims will go through the courts here in the UK if they're not valid, if they're not justified. And that seems to me to be the way forward It's very easy to say, pull out of the Human Rights Convention. That's after all what the Conservative Party wants to do. That's what reform wants to do. That has all sorts of consequences. It would involve probably leaving the Council of Europe, which is entirely separate from the EU. It would have implications for Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement and all that sort of thing. It's an easy thing to say It would be a complicated thing to do, and it might not even solve the problem, which is as the government sees it, the courts here are being too generous in circumstances where they simply have to be a little tougher. Joshua, do do you think that the debate is changing around this? I mean, sometimes I have to say, it does feel like we are moving from a discussion about how we support criminals to a broader one Who should actually count as one of us? Who is British? There is a great concern about this because some people seem to be saying that you're only British if you have white skin, however you want to define that No That stries me as entirely appalling. Some people say you're only British if your parents were born here in the United Kingdom, Well, that would exclude me. My father was not born in the United Kingdom I consider myself British and I've always lived here The question is really not what to do about people who are here now. The question is, do you want to limit immigration to this country? You've then of course, got the problem of asylum and the difficulties there and there you have got international Agreements, the reffugee Convention and there are people who say that that needs to be modified. Now that's never going to be modified because you would need agreement of all the states more than a hundred that are members of it. but maybe our courts could take a slightly more restrictive view to the test of whether somebody has a well founded fear of persecution if they're sent back to the country they've come from So it is possible to adjust these things without taking drastic action, but as I say, government has to be aware of concern about this and yet has to be fair and decent and keep within the law. But when it comes to Shabi Rammit, where we started our conversation, look, neither of us are gambling men, Joshua