Home Office set regional targets to remove immigrants
A 2015 report says the Home Office set targets for voluntary departures of illegal immigrants which were split between regionally-based enforcement teams, it has emerged.
A powerful Commons committee investigating failures that affected the Windrush generation asked Home Secretary Amber Rudd whether her department has targets for migrant removals during a grilling on Wednesday.
Miss Rudd, who took over from Theresa May as Home Secretary in July 2016, told the Commons Home Affairs Committee she was not familiar with suggestions that regional targets were in place.
An inspection of removals by the borders and immigration watchdog said targets were set in 2014/15 and for 2015/16, which were then split between 19 Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) teams across the UK.
The targets, and how they were divided up, were first reported by the BBC.
Following Miss Rudd's appearance before MPs on Wednesday, the Home Office said it had “never been (its) policy to take decisions arbitrarily to meet a target”.
Yvette Cooper, who chairs the committee, said the response was a “complete fudge” and she would be writing to Ms Rudd “to get a proper answer” on Thursday.
Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott have called on Miss Rudd to resign over the Windrush scandal, claiming she had inherited a “failing policy” and made it “worse”.