Immigrant paedophiles
The rights and wrongs of deportation
Jamil Ahmed is a paedophile. He has been found guilty of having sex with teenage girls under 16 twice. This is not a case of a 16 year old and a 15 year old. He was 32 when first found guilty, and 37 when found guilty a second time. He has been to prison and is on the sex offenders register.
He is an immigrant from Pakistan, and the UK wishes to deport him. He argues that this would violate his human rights because his crimes are well-known in the area of Kashmir where he comes from. He claims he would be attacked and killed. He thus fears for his life, and is claiming the right to stay here because of this threat of persecution.
He has been fighting his case for ten years. He has lost twice, and won once, and there will be another hearing in future. He is still in the UK.
I suspect that the vast majority of people will agree that he should be deported. I agree with them. Pakistan is a big place, with ten cities of over a million people. The idea that he cannot hide in a country of 250m people is absurd. He is not that famous or interesting.
It is important that he loses, because if he is successful, any immigrant wanting to remain in the UK needs only to sexually attack a child, publicise what they did back home and create a claim that they fear persecution.
But this is a policy blog, not a column about an individual, and therefore I have a policy suggestion…