Number of
FNO deportations
increasing
9 December 2014
Further to the National Audit Office announcing concerns over a decline in the deportation of Foreign National Offenders (FNOs) in October this year, a report has been published revealing that improvements to the system have churned up notable results.
According to a report by John Vine, the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, there has been a significant increase in the number of high-risk foreign offenders being identified and removed from the UK.
In his report Mr Vine attributes this increase to Operation Nexus, a joint initiative involving the Home Office and police in order to improve the rate of identification and deportation of those who pose a risk to the British public or are not entitled to be in the UK. A major part of the joint efforts sees the Home Office and police working together on tasks such as embedding immigration officers at police custody suites to assist with the identification and management of migration offenders.
Successes
The report outlines many positive outcomes of Operation Nexus, among which are the following:
- a significant increase in the number of requests made by the Metropolitan Police for the Home Office to check entitlement to reside in the UK for foreign nationals (from 4,373 in July 2013 to 6,403 in November 2013)
- a corresponding 37% rise in in the number of immigration offenders being identified (from 1,134 between October 2011 and January 2012 to 1,553 between October 2014 and January 2014)
- a 158% increase in the number of immigration offenders who left the UK after an encounter with the Metropolitan Police
- 85 removals or deportations related to cases considered ‘high harm’ by the police
- a link between police and Home Office fingerprint databases
Room for Improvement
Despite its successes, Chief Inspector John Vine makes in clear in his report that Operation Nexus still leaves room for improvement regarding the way in which FNOs are identified and deported. Among the criticism it is revealed that:
- not all foreign nationals passing through embedded West Midlands Police custody suites had their immigration status checked
- some immigration officers did not have unrestricted access to custody suites
- enforcement teams were finding the additional casework created by Operation Nexus difficult to cope with
- a consistent process was not being followed by embedded immigration officers when reporting the number of status checks undertaken
- eleven cases were examined for the purposes of the report and only four of these eleven cases had retained written records of interviews which had taken place under caution.
Looking Ahead…
It seems that whilst the statistics show that the achievements of Operation Nexus are thus far commendable, a lot remains to be done to ensure its continuing success. To this end, John Vine makes a number of recommendations to the Home Office in his report, including the maintenance of accurate Home Office records and action to be taken to improve the number of removals in the West Midlands Police Force area.
Share story
