In 2018, 24,510 people left the UK via enforced or voluntary return, the lowest annual level in the past five years
There were 24,510 enforced and voluntary returns from the UK in 2018, down 25% from 32,551 in 2017 (though the actual percentage change will be lower because of the initial undercounting of voluntary returns). This fall forms part of a longer downward trend from 2016, with decreases each year thereafter. Declines in both enforced and voluntary returns contribute to this overall decline, though voluntary returns have fallen more steeply, due in part to initial undercounting (Figure 1).
There were 9,461 enforced returns in 2018, 21% fewer than in the previous year. The Home Office reports (2019a) that this fall has coincided with changes across the immigration system. For example, the government has reduced the use of detention and the size of the detention estate (Home Office, 2019d), and proposed changes following the Windrush situation to give more scrutiny to detention decisions and ‘make better use of face-to-face engagement’ with detainees (Joint Committee on Human Rights, 2018). The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (2019) review of enforcement against illegal working also identified factors that may have affected removals following Windrush, including a pause in data sharing with other government departments and lower morale among front-line enforcement staff.
Most people who leave the UK via enforced return do so from detention: 91% in 2018 (in the Home Office datasets this is given by the sum of enforced removals from detention and other returns from detention). For more information about detention, see our briefing, Immigration Detention in the UK.
As a matter of principle and deterrence - all illegal aliens should be deported. It is a moral imperative. To allow anybody to benefit from committing a crime is wrong.
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