Criminal migrants more likely to be barred from gaining British citizenship under tough new rules

Serious criminals are to be barred from gaining British citizenship under tough new rules that come into force on Monday.

Any criminal who has received a jail sentence of a year or more will face stricter “good character” rules that will allow immigration officials to reject their applications for citizenship.

The changes will scrap previous rules where criminals could be granted citizenship if a certain number of years had passed since they finished their sentence, regardless of the type of crime.

“British citizenship is a privilege,” said Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary. “Those who commit crimes shouldn’t be able to enjoy the breadth of rights citizenship brings, including holding a British passport, voting and accessing free medical care from the NHS.

“I am cracking down on abuse of the UK’s immigration and nationality system, by introducing a tougher threshold so that serious criminals cannot gain British citizenship. This is the fair and right thing to do for our country.”

Currently an attempt to gain British citizenship will normally be refused if an individual has received a four-year jail term.

‘Good character’ requirements

Previously an application was also likely to be rejected from anyone who had served between 12 months and four years in prison until 15 years have passed since the end of the sentence. Anyone who had spent less than a year in prison also faced an application being rejected until 10 years had passed.

The changes bring the system into line with immigration rules, with new rules designed to be “stricter” and “more specific” on the so-called “good character” requirements.

The Home Office said the reforms would remove the previous rules whereby some criminals could be granted citizenship after a certain number of years had passed.

There will be exceptions to the new rules and the Home Office said some people could show mitigating circumstances which could support a citizenship bid.

Cases like this could include someone who has committed a minor offence a long time ago but has shown sufficient demonstration of “good character” since.

Deportations fell by half

The Home Office was criticised in June for its failure to kick out foreign criminals by a watchdog which said: “This is no way to run a government department.”

The findings found that performance was not “efficient” with an “unacceptable” lack of data and workable systems.

David Neal, Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, revealed that the number of foreign national offenders who have been deported had fallen by more than half in recent years.

Meanwhile, a scheme to give departing offenders £1,000 for leaving is at risk of abuse as they could come back to the UK later on.

The report said the Home Office was managing the cases of 21,094 foreign offenders, including 6,030 in jail, 1,036 in immigration detention and 13,212 living in the community. Yet the number removed from the UK had dropped from a high of 6,437 in 2016 to 2,676 in 2021 because of Covid restrictions and legal challenges.

A spokesman for the department said at the time: “This report does not reflect the full complexities of returning foreign national offenders, or the significant impact Covid had on our operations.”