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| Britain | |
| Foreign criminals will no longer be able to argue 'right to family life' to stay in Britain | |
| 2012-06-10 | |
| Judges must stop blocking the deportation of foreign criminals from Britain because the right to family life is "not absolute", Theresa May has said. The Home Secretary will call a vote this week allowing MPs to decide how to "balance the interests" of prisoners' and the wider general public. She told the BBC that judges must "follow or take into account" the views of Parliament before coming to decisions on whether prisoners should be deported. The right to a family life is enshrined in under European law. The rules allow hundreds of foreign criminals to delay or prevent deportation each year.
It came as Mrs May unveiled plans to stop people bringing their husbands or wives to live in Britain unless they have at least £18,000 in savings. For every foreign child, they must have an additional £2,400 to stop families becoming dependent on benefits. "It is important that we say you should be able to support yourselves and not be reliant on the state," she told the Andrew Marr Show. The new rules are aimed at helping to reduce immigration from the hundreds of thousands to tens of thousands a year. | |
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