Britain is now a safe haven for the criminals of the world

An Iraqi national who arrived illegally in Britain on a small boat in 2021 cannot yet be deported after claiming he lost his identity documents, despite having already been refused asylum in Italy and Sweden, a judge has ruled. An Indian pedophile who was jailed in 2021 for distributing images of child abusehas been able to avoid deportation under the ECHR, claiming that this would affect his family life because he has two children here, even though he is only allowed to make video calls with them every week. A Zimbabwean who killed a man and seriously injured another after causing a car crash while high on drugs and booze has done so also avoided deportation because a DNA test after he left prison revealed that he had fathered a love child. A tribunal ruled that the ’emotional impact’ it would have on the boy would be a breach of the ECHR. These three stories, which all emerged in just three days this week, show how broken our immigration system is and why leaving the ECHR is necessary to restore control at our borders. No serious state can tolerate the continued presence of serious criminals within its borders simply because of a false threat to family life, a threat that exists only as a result of their own criminal activities. As the example of the Iraqi illegal immigrant shows, British domestic law also has many shortcomings, not least because the ECHR was incorporated into domestic law by the Human Rights Act, with our ability to deport people diminishing as the case law on human rights is expanding. Actually taking back control over the borders would therefore also require serious reforms in our own country. That simply shouldn’t be feasible missing identity documents are sufficient to avoid deportation. In recent years, Albanians have been one of the largest groups of asylum seekers crossing the Channel. Most arrived without identity documents. Why would they do that when a Wizz Air flight from Tirana to Britain easily costs less than £100? That is far less than the thousands of pounds needed to cross the Channel. The answer is that without identity documents it is more difficult to prove that they are applying for asylum under false pretenses. If they appear on their passports, their claim would be quickly rejected. The pretext of losing them gives them a chance for asylum and more time in Britain, which many have used to join organized crime groups here. Arguments against this usually claim that we would lose rights, or that we would lose our international status, or that other countries in the ECHR deport more than we do, or that it would be difficult to achieve this. This ignores the fact that other ECHR countries with independent judiciaries also deport only a minority of those they should deport, that Britain was famous for its freedoms before the ECHR, that non-membership appears to have no impact have on the position of key allies such as the US or Australia, and that any problems pale in comparison to the obvious injustice of forcing the British people to live with dangerous foreign criminals. Our lax asylum system encourages people who have been denied asylum elsewhere to try their luck here. Without that desperate hope, people would not risk their lives in the Channel, where more deaths have occurred this year than last. Enabling such bad-faith asylum applications also unfairly affects the minority of genuine asylum seekers, who are tainted by association. For their good and the good of the British people, it is time to change our broken asylum system. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 3 months with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.