Home Secretary Charles Clarke faced calls to quit after admitting that more than 1,000 foreign criminals, including murderers and rapists, were set free in Britain instead of being deported.
Newspapers expressed outrage and disbelief at the fiasco, the latest to hit a member of Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government in recent months.
The interior minister revealed Tuesday that between February 1999 and March 2006, 1,023 convicted foreigners who should have been considered for deportation after leaving jail were released with no further action taken.
More than 900 of these people are still unaccounted for and Clarke said the whereabouts of most were unknown.
Three murderers, nine rapists, five child molesters and 20 drug smugglers are among the freed prisoners.
Well, if he’s fired — and he should be — he can always get a job with Homeland Insecurity over here.
He’s apparently not going to fired. He offered to resign and Blair said no….and praised him.
Sounds more and more like our politics huh?
“Ah, i see you accidentally released 1,023 foreign prisoners, good work.”
And just to think, one dude more and it would have been a perfect (binary) thousand.
Yeah, he’s obviously being shortchanged by British politics. In the U.S., he would probably get some sort of award. Just looking at him, I’d say he’d look good in a size 8 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Maybe a size 9.
You’re doing a heck of a job, Clarkie!
Can’t you do better than that, Paul?
Like — give him a job with the Republican Party which considers victims to be criminals.
Tee-Hee.
“…SHOULD have been considered for deportation AFTER LEAVING JAIL were released with no further action taken.”
They did their time. Why do people insist on continuing their punishment? They did their time. Remember, a foreigner is someone simply without citizenship. He is not necessarily illegal. If your job was stationed in Tokyo but you were convicted on a DWI and was sentenced to jail for one month, should you be deported from the country after you get out? Say, your employer is forgiving but can only offer you your lucrative position if you stay there but Japan considers you a foreigner with a criminal record. Should you be exported if you did your time?
This story is PRECISELY NOT to do with illegal aliens. It is to do with convicted criminals who are aliens being released, after serving their time, and not being deported. Although it is possible some are illegal aliens most will be in this country legally. Clarke is suffciently incompetent to run Homeland Security – he would make a good replacement for Chertoff should Pres Bush need one.
Paul,
“the democrats want to give blanket amnesty to illegal aliens”
So does the Duh. So do a lot of pro business repubs. Seems to me both parties are split on this one.
re #11,
I agree and have posted often that all we’re doing if we amnisty illegals is rewarding criminal behavior.
I have no doubt that such come here or Britton because their own country doesn’t put up with such crap with as much “sensitivity” as we do.
sorry em….these people actually ARE illegal..They should have been reported to immingration BEFORE they were released for possible deportation. If you are legally in Britian and you commit a crime, you will be reported(supposedly) to immigration, but the odds are you won’t be deported.
Anyone wanting to become a citizen of Great Britain must be an *upstanding person, if later, after becoming a citizen they find the person wasn’t so upstanding, they can revoke the cirizenship and deport them.
#8…david….yeah david….if your an illegal….you bet’cha.
Just a side note on this subject…….Britain has a TOTAL prison population of 55 thousand locked up and they think they have a crime problem.
California has almost that number of ILLEGAL prisoners alone.
Blair probably didn’t fire him because on that day alone he had the NHS declare it will have to lay off nurses because the system is broke, and 2 days prior to this it became public that the NHS is paying doctors 250 thousand pounds a year, and the deputy Prime Minister Prescott announced he had an affair back from 2002 -2004. It’s not been a good new year for Tony.
Now there’s a kiss hello to put you off your tea.