Daily Mail
March 27, 2014
Almost 4,200 foreign rapists, killers and other criminals who should have been kicked out of the UK are walking the streets after a surge in failed deportation cases.
The number of overseas convicts who are being released from jail without being deported has soared by a fifth in the past year, despite a series of promises by ministers.
More than 30 are walking out of jail and into the community every week.
Some 1,328 former inmates have been fighting deportation for at least six years. In many cases, they are able to thwart their removal by using the Human Rights Act, including article 8, the right to a family life.
MPs said people were being put in peril by the failure to get rid of dangerous foreign convicts.
The news will increase pressure on David Cameron to reform the Act, which was introduced by Labour, or scrap it.
James Clappison, a member of the Home Affairs Select Committee, said ministers must ‘remove obstacles’ to deportation, adding: ‘There may be a need for radical action. The public want them to be returned, not have them hanging around for ever.’
Tory MP Dominic Raab, who has campaigned for tougher laws, said: ‘It’s bad enough foreign criminals using spurious human rights grounds to defeat deportation controls, but the growing number being released on to the streets increases the risk to the public.’