Plane Carrying 500 Nigerian Deportees From UK Arrives Murtala Mohammed Airport

ABOUT 500 Nigerians have arrived at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos today after the British authorities chartered a special Titan Airways plane to deport them back to the country as part of its an anti-immigration programme.

Of late, the British government has stepped up its anti-immigration rhetoric and is clamping down on migrants in response to its stagnant economy. Nigerians in the UK are one of the primary targets of the deportation programme and every month the UK deports up to 100 detainees via charter flights commonly run by Titan.

This latest flight departed from Stansted Airport near London at 22.30 last night and arrived in Lagos at 06.00 this morning. Contracted by the Home Office, Titan Airways flies a plane load of deportees to Nigeria on the last Tuesday of every month.

Over recent weeks, dozens of Nigerian care workers were arrested in immigration raids across London and are being held at various removal centres. Many of them, who were arrested for allegedly overstaying their visas, were forcibly removed from the UK on the charter flight.

Some had worked for more than a decade and say they are distraught at the prospect of leaving behind many elderly and vulnerable people they have forged close bonds with. Some of those being held were working for a large company called Mears Group, which provides staff to care for elderly and disabled people.

In London, the Home Office confirmed that on September 7 and 8, immigration enforcement officers conducted simultaneous raids at residential addresses across the capital. Following the raid, 34 care workers were arrested and detained while another 21 were served with immigration documents and placed on temporary release.

One Home Office spokesman said: “This intelligence-led operation was conducted in response to allegations that foreign nationals have been using forged documentation to gain employment illegally as carers.”

Many of the detained workers are being held in Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in Bedfordshire, while others are being detained at Morton Hall Immigration Removal Centre in Lincoln.  Alan Long, one of the directors of Mears Group, said not all the carers picked up by the Home Office had worked for the firm but pointed out that some of them were very good and award-winning care workers.

He added: “We have got very good procedures but one or two do tend to slip through the net. It’s unfortunate that some of the staff were long-term workers with us as we always work with the Home Office and I don’t think that this has impacted on our service.”

Mears Care in Hounslow received a glowing report from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) this year scoring good on all five key indicators. The CQC found that older people and those with physical and mental health problems who were receiving care reported their carers to be kind, polite and considerate and said they felt supported by them