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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Letters

Home Office must stop cruel deportations

Campaigners outside Downing Street protest against government plans to deport 50 people to Jamaica, 2020.
Campaigners protesting outside Downing Street against government plans to deport 50 people to Jamaica in 2020. Photograph: Aaron Chown/PA

Mark Nelson admits he made a mistake, grew cannabis, served his time and has not offended again (I’ve lived in Britain 22 years and have kids here – why am I being deported to Jamaica?, 13 May). He’s a car mechanic and has children. He’s been here for decades. What good can deporting him possibly do, depriving his children of a father and putting him at risk? And for what? To pander to anti-immigrant noise? It’s wrong.

I’m trying to sponsor Ukrainian refugees but the Home Office is making that impossible; the Rwanda plan is wildly expensive and won’t work; Windrush is a stain on our country. It’s all cruel and unnecessary. Go to any hospital, care home, restaurant or building site and see how dependent we are on immigrants. We need a sympathetic system, not a dysfunctional Home Office. This random cruelty must stop now.
Diana Good
London

• Two things strike me – how unfair and blinkered the initial decision to deport Mark Nelson was, and that the Home Office has the capacity to act quickly when it is at risk of being held to account.
Leatrice Bailey
London

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