Are the Government wrong to state that they cannot deport Shabir Ahmed, the leader of the Rochdale grooming gang?

With the caveat that this article has been drafted with limited time to review the nitty gritty details, and the Government has, supposedly, had a decade to look into this, it appears that the Government are wrong to consider the Ahmed, soon to be released from prison, cannot be deported (or removed) from the UK.

The Government refer to the Immigration Act 1971 which came into force on 1 January 1973. Section 7 of that Act provides an exemption from deportation for Commonwealth and Irish nationals who were ordinarily resident in the UK when the act came into force and had lived in the UK for at least 5 years before any deportation decision was taken.

What the government might have missed is in subsection 1 which states:

                “a Commonwealth citizen … who was such a citizen at the coming into force of this Act”

Pakistan is a Commonwealth country but it left the Commonwealth on 30 January 1972 and rejoined in 1989. Ahmed was not, therefore, a Commonwealth citizen at the coming into force of the Act and does not benefit from the exemption to deportation.

I think that Ahmed is liable to deportation and he cannot benefit from this exemption under the 1971 Act. He might be able to benefit from the “over and above” exemption contained within the Immigration Rules but, given the nature of his offences, it seems unlikely that he could succeed with this defence.

Notwithstanding the above, Ahmed is, most likely, unlawfully resident in the UK. A person who holds ILR loses that status upon obtaining British citizenship. A person cannot have immigration status AND be British and immigration status is not resurrected if British citizenship is revoked or otherwise renounced. Essentially, Ahmed’s ILR is not automatically returned to him upon the revocation of his citizenship.

The 1971 Act, if it DOES apply to Ahmed, provides an exemption from deportation. It does not provide an exemption from removal – the process of taking someone out of the UK when they do not have immigration status. If Ahmed is unlawfully resident he can be removed from the UK and any application he makes to remain will, most likely, be refused on Suitability grounds given the length of this sentence and the nature of his offences.

Again, one hopes the Government has spent the last decade getting correct, and detailed advice, but it appears that the references to the 1971 Act fail to consider that Ahmed was NOT a Commonwealth national on 1 January 1973 and it appears that no attempt at removal is planned.

Ahmed might be able to resist deportation or removal under the Immigration Rules but to not even try seems to be wrong.

Latitude Law represent many people facing deportation and the law should be applied fairly to all. That includes attempting to deport or remove people who are not protected by exemptions. Proper application of the law will benefit everyone – making special exceptions or going behind legislation will ultimately damage protections we all rely on.