Realist, not conformist analysis of the latest financial, business and political news

The Twins To Be Deported To Different Countries

Credit – public domain

In the Annals Of Government Efficiency this one will take some beating. The Home Office has decided to deport a pair of twins. Well, fair enough perhaps, they’re both just coming out of jail and why not get shot of them? Except they’re being deported to different countries. On different criteria of where they should be deported to. And even after that they’re making an error:

Twins who were born in London and have never left the UK face deportation to different countries in the Caribbean where they have no close relatives, their families have told the Guardian.

Darrell Roberts, 24, has been issued with a deportation notice informing him that the Home Office plans to send him to the Dominican Republic following a prison sentence, even though he has no connection with the country. He believes officials named it in error; his father was born on the island of Dominica.

His twin brother, Darren Roberts, has been warned he faces deportation to Grenada – the country where his mother was born – when he finishes his own jail sentence, according to his partner.

The deportation doesn’t cause me all that much heartache I have to admit. But the getting the name of the damn country wrong makes me worry about the British government and it’s reputation for having a clue.

But this isn’t the end of the screw ups, not at all:

The brothers were taken into the care of social services when they were 13 after the deaths from cancer in quick succession of their mother and later of the uncle who looked after them when she died. Their father had moved abroad before their mother’s death and they have had no contact with him for decades. Neither parent had British citizenship.

The twins’ siblings have said they believe Ealing social services, in west London, was negligent for failing to organise citizenship when they were children.

Yep, the reason they’re not citizens is a government screw up to begin with.

The real worry here is of course that there are people out there who, quite seriously, think that this clown show of government should have more power over our lives. Instead of, say, the bloodied machete, bottle of petrol and lighted taper solution.

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jgh
jgh
4 years ago

The fact that nobody said “‘old on, you were born here? Why don’t you have soil birthright? Who’s cocked up?” make me dispair at the effectiveness of any government functioning.

But of course, the ones demanding more powers will automatically come back with “but it’s because *WE’RE* not in charge!”

MrYan
MrYan
4 years ago

Number of problems with the way this is outlined even thought it’s fun to make jokes of government performance (and well deserved as they are crap). Whilst there should be some consistency, there needs to be some proof of where the father/mother came from in order to get travel documents to deport them. If they couldn’t prove Darren’s father’s nationality then they would take the mother’s instead. Hence why they can come to two different conclusions. Probably the error is with the decision to send Darrell to the father’s birthplace compounded by the error in where that was (hence the… Read more »

Leo Savantt
Leo Savantt
4 years ago

It certainly seems that the Home Office have been even more feckless than is usual. Since the twins were born in the UK surely they should be entitled to British citizenship by default, registration or not? They therefore should not be deported, however venal their crimes. Additionally why on earth would either Caribbean state accept them, to do so seems equally feckless? However, the government are not immediately to blame. The Home Office is a ministry, staffed by civil servants, not the government.The government in the UK consists primarily of cabinet ministers and secondarily of lesser ones, totalling a 120… Read more »

MrYan
MrYan
4 years ago
Reply to  Leo Savantt

Being born in the UK isn’t enough – https://www.gov.uk/types-of-british-nationality/british-citizenship

For good reason, if the near term pregnant from Nigeria could not only take advantage of the NHS by flying into the UK, but also get British citizenship for their child, we’d be a 3rd world country already.

Leo Savantt
Leo Savantt
4 years ago
Reply to  MrYan

However, if you are born in the UK, grow UK in the UK and are taken into care by UK authorities and on reaching adulthood have never lived or had an experience of another country, denying UK citizenship seems not on overtly harsh but also ridiculously impractical.

jgh
jgh
4 years ago
Reply to  Leo Savantt

“Since the twins were born in the UK surely they should be entitled to British citizenship by default, registration or not?”
Not since 1981, which is why I went back and checked their ages before commenting. Since then, you gain soil birthright only if at least one of your parents already has blood or soil birthright.
They are entitled to expidited citizenship application processing, but they still have to apply for it.

Bloke in Kent
Bloke in Kent
4 years ago
Reply to  jgh

OK fine, but this is still a huge balls up by the bureaucracy as they failed to check their status before hurling the poor boys into the social *care* sausage machine of which they are no doubt a product. Had they been deported at a younger age I wonder how their lives would have turned out…

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