UK Home Secretary Admits to Targets Over Removal of Illegal Immigrants

The UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd is facing backlash and is being called on to resign from her position after it was revealed that officials were given targets to remove illegal immigrants.

On April 26, Rudd was asked to be present in front of MPs in the UK House of Commons so she could answer an urgent question from Labour’s shadow home secretary Diane Abbott. This was after Home Office documents showed that targets had been stipulated for voluntary removals of undocumented immigrants, The Guardian reported.

Rudd admitted that there were “local targets” for “internal performance management” but said she had not known about them, BBC reported. On April 25, she had said that there were no targets as she was being interrogated by MPs investigating the problems faced by the Windrush generation.

“I have never agreed that there should be specific removal targets and I would never support a policy that puts targets ahead of people. The immigration arm of the Home Office has been using local targets for internal performance management,” she was quoted as saying by BBC. Rudd said she would ban targets if they were being used “inappropriately”.

According to a 2015 inspection report, as per The Guardian, the Home Office set a target of 12,000 voluntary departures of illegal immigrants in the United Kingdom in 2015-16, an increase from 7,200 during 2014-15.

Rudd, on April 25, said that she had asked for more illegal immigrants, almost 12,000, to be removed per year. She added that there was “nothing wrong” with trying to remove people who were here illegally, according to the Guardian. “I do not want us to be run by a target culture. I want to make sure the individual is at the heart of any decision,” added Rudd

Abbott called for Rudd’s resignation as a matter of “honour”, the BBC report said. The shadow cabinet minister Keir Starmer joined Abbott said that Rudd should address the parliament in order to present the full position on targets. “Otherwise there can’t be real accountability,” Starmer said, as per The Guardian.

Meanwhile Rudd had reportedly told the May in a letter in January 2017 that she would give immigration officials more “teeth” to deport illegal immigrants in the country to accelerate their deportation program, The Guardian reported earlier