Priti Patel has vowed to slow down visa applications from nations who are refusing to take back criminals and asylum seekers from the UK.
The Home Secretary plans to ‘impose visa penalties’ on countries who don’t ‘cooperate’ on deportations in a fresh crackdown on those who are ‘abusing our hospitality’.
She revealed Gambia will be first for the stricter measures after they ‘ignored’ calls and ‘only took four criminals’ back last year.
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Cambodia and Vietnam are also under consideration for visa penalties after their records for taking back deportations were also low.
Speaking to the The Sun on Sunday, she said: ‘Some countries do not cooperate on returns and so we will impose visa penalties on countries who refuse to take criminals back.
‘We rightly take back British citizens who commit crimes abroad and other countries do the same.’
The number of foreign criminals released from prison on to the streets reached a record high of almost 11,000.
Official figures show that at the end of June there were 10,882 foreign national offenders who had been released from jail but not deported.
All are subject to deportation because they were handed prison sentences of at least 12 months. (DailyMAIL)
