The ‘chicken nuggets’ case: the farce of Britain’s borders

Another week, another story exposing the UK’s truly farcical immigration system. According to the Telegraph, an immigration tribunal ruled that an Albanian criminal and illegal immigrant should be allowed to stay in the country because of his 10-year-old son’s aversion to ‘foreign’ chicken nuggets.

Klevis Disha arrived illegally in the UK as a 15-year-old in 2001. He secured UK citizenship in 2007 by giving a fake name and falsely claiming to have been born in the former Yugoslavia. But in 2021, then home secretary Priti Patel stripped Disha of his UK citizenship after he served two years in prison. He had been caught with £250,000, known to be the proceeds of crime. Facing deportation to Albania, Disha promptly appealed the home secretary’s decision.

In August last year, an immigration tribunal ruled that deporting Disha would be ‘unduly harsh’ on his son, who finds the ‘type of chicken nuggets that are available abroad’ unpalatable. This was the sole piece of evidence provided to the tribunal that his son’s ‘sensitivity around food’ would make it impossible for him to live in Albania with his father. Owing to the impact Disha’s absence would have on his son, the tribunal found that his deportation would be a breach of his right to family life, which is protected under the European Convention on Human Rights.

Following an official review of the tribunal’s decision, in which another judge disagreed with the ruling, the case is to be reheard. Still, as it stands, Disha will be allowed to remain.

This ridiculous case is far from an aberration. In fact, it only reinforces what most in the country have known for a long time – namely, that Britain has become a sanctuary for foreign criminals. Rapists, drug traffickers and murderers have all been successful in gaining asylum or avoiding deportation on the most laughable pretexts.

As was recently reported in the Daily Mail, a Jamaican drug dealer, who assaulted his wife, was able to invoke his right to a family life because his daughter is ‘questioning her gender’. Pakistan-born Qari Abdul Rauf, a ringleader of the Rochdale grooming gang who raped and trafficked a 15-year-old girl, also successfully resisted deportation because his wife and five children live in the UK. The list goes on and on and on.

It’s likely to get longer, too, given appeals against deportations are soaring. According to the Telegraph, the backlog of asylum appeals has increased five-fold since 2022, to 34,000. The word has clearly got out among foreign-born criminals that regardless of what you might have done, you stand a high chance of remaining in the UK on human-rights grounds, no matter how tenuous the claim.

Cases like these are doing extraordinary damage. Not only do they elevate the human rights of foreign criminals above the safety of the public, but they also further undermine people’s confidence in the immigration system. They only make it harder to argue for a generous asylum system that can help those in genuine need.

This border farce cannot go on.

Hugo Timms is an intern at spiked.