What was claimed
The government has deported 30,000 people in the last year.
Our verdict
Not quite. The government says 30,000 people have been returned, but this includes both enforced removals and voluntary returns, and so not all of them match the official definition of a “deportation”.
Defence secretary John Healey said in an interview this week that the government has “deported” 30,000 people in the last year. And in recent weeks we’ve seen a similar claim on social media.
However, this isn’t quite right. While Mr Healey appears to have been referring to the total number of immigration returns between 5 July 2024 (when Labour entered government) and 18 May 2025, we don’t know how many of these nearly 30,000 returns were deportations. There were 7,893 enforced returns (26.4% of the total), the category of returns that includes deportations, meaning the majority of these returns were not deportations.
As we’ve explained before, not all immigration returns meet the official definition of a “deportation”, which the Home Office states refers specifically to returns “which are enforced either following a criminal conviction, or when it is judged that a person’s removal from the UK is beneficial to the public good”.
This isn’t the first time Mr Healey has made this mistake. While other MPs have corrected the record after we pointed out similar errors, Mr Healey has yet to correct his previous statement. We’ve asked him again, and will update this article if we receive a reply.
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On 10 July, Mr Healey told LBC: “We’ve also deported 30,000 people in the last year”. And a few weeks ago, apparently referring to the same figures, a Facebook post claimed: “Nearly 30,000 Migrants Deported Since Labour Took Office — 12% Rise on Last Year
“Since the election, nearly 30,000 failed asylum seekers, foreign criminals, and immigration offenders have been deported — a 12% increase on last year.”
These claims appear to refer to figures first published on 21 May showing the number of immigration returns between 5 July 2024 and 18 May 2025. The government published a video and a press release on the same day that included some further statistics that match those in the Facebook post.
The post also said: “foreign offender removals rose 14%”. The government has said that 4,436 foreign national offenders were removed between 5 July 2024 and 18 May 2025 (a 14% increase on the same period a year before), but we don’t know how many of these returns were voluntary or enforced.
Claims made using data without clear caveats or explanation run the risk of misleading people. If an MP makes a false or misleading claim on broadcast media they should take responsibility for ensuring it is appropriately corrected, and make efforts to ensure the correction is publicly available to anyone who might have heard the claim. False or misleading claims have the potential to harm individuals, groups and democratic processes and institutions.
As detailed in our fact check, we contacted John Healey to request a correction regarding this claim.
His ministerial office told us that he will not issue a correction.
Correction 16 July 2025
This article was amended on 16 July 2025 to include figures for the number of enforced returns up to 18 May 2025.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because we don’t know how many of the 30,000 people the government has said have been returned were technically ‘deportations’.
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