Criminals who cross-dress can now avoid deportation

Another week, another mad story from the immigration courts. According to the Telegraph, a 27-year-old Algerian criminal has been permitted to stay in Britain as a refugee because he describes himself as transgender.

The man entered the UK in 2013, illegally. Citing the ‘situation’ in Algeria, he was given limited leave to remain as a refugee by UK authorities. Following a string of offences – including burglary, theft and battery – that landed him in jail, the Home Office issued a deportation order in 2022. He appealed, arguing that the fact he ‘was and is a transvestite and / or transgender’ made it too dangerous for him to return to Algeria. He also said that his father ‘threatened to kill him’.

An immigration judge has agreed with this argument, ruling that his proclivity for dressing in women’s clothes and wearing makeup would draw ‘negative attention’ in Algeria, thus making him a refugee, worthy of ‘international protection’.

When the Refugee Convention was established in 1951 it had noble aims. It was designed for a world coming to terms with the aftermath of war and mass displacement. But the flexibility of the term ‘refugee’ has now made it close to meaningless. Should a trans-identifying burglar from Algeria really be entitled to the same protection as women and children fleeing a war zone?

Unsurprisingly, the public’s patience is wearing thin. Forty-four per cent now ‘strongly support’ increasing the number of illegal immigrants deported, while a further 23 per cent ‘tend to support’ it, according to YouGov. The public mood is even less sympathetic when it comes to foreign criminals, with 81 per cent of Brits in favour of their deportation.

Recent protests in Epping, Essex, sparked after an illegal immigrant was charged with allegedly sexually assaulting a young girl, highlight the level of public discontent over immigration. The perverse outcomes from the immigration courts only fuel the public’s disillusionment. Consider, for example, the Zimbabwean paedophile who could not be deported because of the stigma his convictions would bring in his home country. Or the Albanian criminal whose deportation was overturned because his son did not like foreign food, specifically chicken nuggets. If Keir Starmer is serious about ‘repair[ing] the social fabric’ of the UK, as he claimed last month, he has to change the laws that allow for these farcical outcomes.

We urgently need to review terms like ‘refugee’ and put an end to people gaming the asylum system. It stokes resentment among the public, and harms the interests of those who genuinely deserve our protection. An asylum system that treats cross-dressing criminals as refugees is in need of serious repair.

Luke Gittos is a spiked columnist and author.