More Than 13,000 Foreign Criminals Awaiting Deportation From UK
"More than 13,000 foreign criminals are awaiting deportation from the UK, including thousands of European citizens, according to a report by MPs, which warns that the failure to remove a population ""the size of a small town"" could undermine public confidence in the UK 's EU membership.
In findings that were immediately seized upon by Brexit campaigners, the Home Affairs Select Committee said that ""clear inefficiencies"" in the process of sending foreign national offenders (FNOs) back to fellow EU member states would lead people to ""question the point of the UK remaining a member of the EU"". While the pace of removals has increased in recent years, committee chair Keith Vaz, who supports a Remain vote, said that the Home Office should have done better. While the majority of FNOs in the UK are in prisons, nearly 6,000 were living in communities at the end of 2015, the report said. Of the predominant nationalities among FNOs, the top three were all EU countries: Poland, Ireland and Romania."