Images of illegal migrants and foreign offenders being deported from the UK have been released for the first time, as the Government confirms 19,000 foreign nationals have been removed from the country since Labour came to power.
The unprecedented move is part of a drive by the new Government to try to show it is taking tough action on those with no right to live or work in Britain.
However, more controversially, only a tiny fraction of the thousands of deportations include those who crossed the English Channel illegally on small boats.
The video, which is about two-and-a-half minutes long, shows multiple foreign nationals, some in restraints, being led onto a specially chartered aircraft.
The video shows multiple foreign nationals being led onto a specially chartered aircraft
Home Office
Only a tiny fraction of the thousands of deportations include those who crossed the English Channel illegally on small boats
Home Office
Although officials have not confirmed where the flight was headed, GB News understands it was within eastern Europe.
One at a time, each foreign national is seen on the footage being taken from a bus parked on the airport tarmac and escorted up covered stairs to the aircraft.
Each offender was escorted by four security personnel as they were taken up the steps.
Several were seen wearing restraints around their wrists, which were fastened to a strapping around their waists.
GB News has been told that roughly one in ten of those deported are 'non compliant' and require some form of restraint.
MIGRANT CRISIS LATEST:
Although officials have not confirmed where the flight was headed, GB News understands it was within eastern Europe
Home Office
Each offender was escorted by four security personnel as they were taken up the step
Home Office
The Government said it had surpassed its removal targets, after the deportation of nearly 19,000 failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals and other immigration offenders since the election.
Chartered and scheduled flights took illegal immigrants their home countries across Africa, Asia, Europe and South America.
The increase in removals comes as the Home Office confirms a significant surge in Immigration Enforcement raids on UK businesses employing foreign nationals with no right to live or work here.
January saw a 73 per cent increase in illegal working arrests, after 609 foreign nationals were detained, and 828 businesses raided by Home Office enforcement teams.
From the start of the Labour government in July, up to 31 January, 5,424 raids were carried out, and 3,930 arrests were made.
Over the past seven months, the Home Office redeployed 1,000 staff from the Rwanda deterrent programme to work on immigration enforcement.
As part of the increase in enforcement activity between 5 July 2024 and 31 January 2025, enforced returns are up 24 per cent, removals of foreign national offenders up 21 per cent and illegal working raids up by 38 per cent compared to the same period 12 months earlier.
One at a time, each foreign national is seen on the footage being taken from a bus parked on the airport tarmac and escorted up covered stairs to the aircraft
Home Office
GB News has been told that roughly one in ten of those deported are 'non compliant' and require some form of restraint
Home Office
Officials said the figures represent the highest rate of returns seen in the UK since 2018.
They include the four biggest return flights in UK history, with a combined total of more than 850 people on board those four chartered flights.
The decision to release video of the latest removals was timed to coincide with the second reading of the Government's new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration bill in the Commons.
The bill aims to give law enforcement authorities new counter terrorism style powers to go after the criminal gangs behind the illegal trade in small boat crossings.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “To rebuild public confidence in the immigration system, we need to show the rules are respected and enforced. That’s why, as part of the Government’s Plan for Change, we have put significant additional resource into immigration enforcement and returns, so those who have no right to be here, particularly those who have committed crimes in our country, are removed as swiftly as possible."
But the co-leader of the Green party, Carla Denyer said: “This Labour government are plumbing new depths with their plan to broadcast footage of people being detained and deported.
“Those involved should be searching their consciences to ask if such breathtaking cruelty is really worth it all for the sake of aping the rhetoric of Reform."
Although Labour seems determined to continue with its efforts to increase enforcement action on illegal immigrants, the numbers arrested and removed are just a tiny fraction of the number of foreign nationals believed to be living and working in the illegal economy.
Some estimated put the illegal working figure at more than one-and-a-half million.
You may like
