It depends what you mean by from childhood, the somalian wanted in connection with the murder of a British Police woman came to this country when he was 13 was give refugee status and within the next 7 years had commited a string of robberies and armed robberies.
He came as a child, should we allow him to stay, even though he commited serious crimes very shortly after arrival?

On the news a few mins ago, it just mentioned the Afghan hijackers who hijacked a plane using guns and bombs to fly them to Britain to seek asylum, they are still in Britain ofcourse although the government is trying to reject them, the courts are supporting the hijackers…
Now I feel sympathy for people fleeing the taliban but can we really give refuge to passager plane hijackers??
Seems like a reward.

There is a big problem in this country of foreign fraud gangs, which is not a violent crime and some would say not all that serious (compared to things like rape), but if these people came to this country purely to take advantage for criminal gain, surely we must tell them to leave?

What needs to be established is whether the criminal came to this country and started commiting crimes straight away (within a few years, maybe 5 or so), ie abusing our good nature. Or if the person was a genuine long term immigrant with a good history but made a mistake, or got into a situation out of their control (like a pub fight).

I think there should be an assumption of deportation and that we should trust judges to look at cases such as those listed above and use their judgement.

I wrote an entry on my blog about this issue, because I could see this country going down the same route as the USA on this issue – and what they ended up doing was dumping large numbers of criminals who had lived in the USA since childhood, who had not chosen to take advantage of America’s hospitality but whose parents had done, and got involved in gangs after living in parts of town where gangs are commonplace, on their third-world home countries which then had to deal with the crime these people brought back. I don’t think that exporting British criminal culture to poor countries by sending home its foreign elements is ethical.

I also don’t think it’s ethical to kick out someone who’s been here since childhood for anything but the most serious of offences (rape and the like). I have heard of people being threatened with deportation from the USA for offences like assault, and this is indeed what is happening here – as in this example of a man from Chile who arrived as a refugee nearly 30 years ago and is now being threatened with deportation after injuring someone in a bar brawl – and he has only been so threatened since the foreign prisoners scandal made headlines. In this case, it seems the local community don’t consider him a threat and there is a campaign to keep him in Scotland. (The stories do not say whether he does or does not have children; in the USA they are not shy to deprive American children of foreign parents.)

With all the fuss about masses of foreign criminals walking the streets who could have been kicked out, people don’t ask whether the offences are so serious that kicking the offender out of the country is necessary. I’m sure a lot of people don’t think causing an unpremeditated injury in a fight does merit kicking someone out of the country when they have been here since childhood.

I don’t believe that restraining a person who attacks me is infringing upon their liberty. I therefore do not feel that asking the government to restrain them is infringing upon their liberty.

Yes, if you look in a dictionary then you will find several definitions of liberty (of which Dave has picked one) but I am referring to a political liberty and particularly negative political liberty. Different meanings of liberty may be used in different contexts but in a constitutional sense the imprisonment of a person who means you harm does not take away from liberty itself.

There is no trade off between the freedoms of criminals and law-abiding citizens. If we live in a country that respects liberty then we are free. If we live in a country that does not then we are not free. If the law goes beyond what the constitution of a free country may allow or lowers the burden of proof then it really doesn’t matter whether you are a law-abiding citizen or a criminal, you are denied your liberty.

Liberty: “The condition of being physically and legally free from confinement, servitude, or forced labor.”

If the state imprisons someone for whatever reason justified or not, self-defence or not, the state is taking their liberty away.

There ‘is’ a trade off between the freedoms of the criminals and the freedoms of the law abiding victims.

Why on earth should law enforcement reduce people’s liberty? Laws are, or should be, a means to prevent us from doing things we cannot possibly have a right to do.

You own your life liberty and property. No-one has a right to take that away from you and you therefore do not have a right to take that away from others. Necassarily that means you cannot empower a government to take the life, liberty or property of another – however you may ask a government to protect you from others who try to take your life, liberty or property.

In the case of the old lady, she does not have an absolute right to feel safe but she does have a right to take self-protection measures to feel safer (such as carrying mace or a taser). The thug does have a right to walk down the street but not to beat people up. If he assaults someone then he is overstepping his rights by infringing on the liberty of another. It then becomes reasonable to ask the government to step in and imprison the thug. Since this is an act of self-defence there is no loss of liberty to the thug.

As long as laws are used in self-defence and not to enforce our views on others then there is no loss of liberty involved.

But practically, we must remember that whatever the Home Office decides to do, it will continue to be the case that the Home Office doesn’t know what the other fingers are doing, let alone the other hand…