Either 19,000 or 24,000 people have been “deported” since Labour came to power.
These figures refer to the total number of immigration returns (up to 31 January or 22 March respectively). But not all of these were officially classed as deportations. The majority involved people who left the UK voluntarily.
Labour has sent home 19,000 people with no right to be here in its first nine months in government, which is more than was achieved in any year in the last parliament.
Labour returned 19,000 people in around seven months, and 24,000 in just under nine, but neither figure is higher than the 26,730 returns in 2023. Labour’s quarterly returns rate is higher than at any point in the previous parliament, however.
“We have already deported, sent home, 19,000 people with no right to be here.”
“We’ve sent 19,000 people with no right to be here back in the first nine months we’ve had as a government, which is more than was achieved in any year in the last parliament.”
“Starmer ‘angry’ about illegal migration as he reveals 24,000 deportations under Labour”
In recent weeks we’ve seen a number of claims about immigration returns since Labour came to office which don’t appear to reflect what published data shows.
Several Labour politicians—including border security minister Dame Angela Eagle—and some media have referred to the total number of immigration returns as the number of people being “deported”. That’s not quite right according to Home Office data—not all returns are classed as “deportations” and in fact most involve people leaving the UK voluntarily.
Dame Angela also claimed last week that the government had “sent 19,000 people with no right to be here back in the first nine months” of Labour being in office, and that this “is more than was achieved in any year in the last parliament”.
It’s not entirely clear what comparative figures this claim refers to, but it doesn’t appear to be correct. The 19,000 figure refers to returns up to 31 January, while more recent figures show there were 24,103 returns in the almost-nine months up to 22 March. But neither figure is higher than the 26,730 returns in 2023. Returns in Labour’s first six months were higher than in any two consecutive quarters in the previous parliament, however.
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On BBC Radio 4’s Today programme (2:38) last Monday (31 March), border security minister Dame Angela Eagle said: “We have already deported, sent home, 19,000 people with no right to be here.”
The Home Office said Dame Angela was referring to the total number of returns of people without the right to be in the UK in almost seven months (rather than nine months) under Labour between 5 July 2024 and 31 January 2025, which was 18,987. (Data published on the same day Ms Eagle was speaking shows that between 5 July 2024 and 22 March 2025 there were around 24,103 returns of people without the right to be in the UK.)Ms Eagle also made a similar claim in parliament in February, saying: “The latest figures show that 18,987 people with no right to be here have been deported since we came into government.”
Other Labour MPs have also described the number of people returned as the number “deported”. Mike Tapp MP said in parliament last month that the government had “deported 19,000 people”, while back in February Mr Tapp and Preet Kaur Gill MP referred to around 16,000 people being deported.
Meanwhile some media have similarly referred to more recent figures for the total number of returns as “deportations” instead. The Independent said there had been “24,000 deportations under Labour”, while ITN paraphrased Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer as saying Labour had “deported more than 24,000 illegal immigrants” (though Mr Starmer himself did not use that term). The Ashford Labour Party and grassroots campaign group Labour Future also made similar claims.
However not all immigration returns meet the official definition of a “deportation”. In fact, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak corrected the record after he similarly referred to combined enforced and voluntary returns as “deportations” last year, which we wrote about at the time.
The Home Office states: “The term ‘deportations’ refers to a legally defined subset of 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 definition is confirmed in its latest guidance.
We don’t know how many of the 18,987 returns under Labour up to 31 January 2025, or the 24,103 returns under Labour up to 22 March 2025, were officially classified as “deportations”.
But we do know that enforced returns—the category of returns that includes deportations—only accounted for a minority of the total, 27% and 26% respectively.
It’s also worth noting that while Dame Angela said the figure referred to people “sent home” by the government, many of the returns will have had no involvement from the government.
Returns of people who are in the UK without a right to stay here fall into two broad categories: enforced returns (those carried out by the Home Office), and voluntary returns (those where someone liable to be returned leaves of their own accord, either with or without support from the Home Office). The Home Office describes voluntary returns with no involvement from the government as “other verified returns”.
Because the figure referenced by Dame Angela is from ad-hoc, not official data, we don’t know how many of the voluntary returns (which accounted for about 73% of the total number) were classed as “other verified returns”.
The most recently published official statistics show that between July and December 2024 (broadly covering Labour’s first six months in office), 6,150 returns were “other verified returns”—accounting for around half of voluntary returns over this period, and 35% of all returns.
When we contacted the Home Office about Dame Angela’s comments it referred us to the latest ad-hoc release data. ITN corrected its headline after Full Fact got in touch—we’ve also contacted Mr Tapp, Ms Gill, the Independent, the Ashford Labour Party and Labour Future for comment and will update this fact check with any responses we receive.
In her 31 March appearance on the Today programme, Dame Angela also claimed Labour had “sent more people home in the first nine months of our time in office than were sent home in any year in the whole of the last parliament”.
And she said similar in a separate interview the same day on BBC Breakfast (no longer online) when she said: “We’ve sent 19,000 people with no right to be here back in the first nine months we’ve had as a government, which is more than was achieved in any year in the last parliament.”
This claim doesn’t appear to be correct, though exactly which comparative figures she was referring to isn’t entirely clear.
Given Dame Angela talked about returns over the “first nine months” of Labour’s time in government it appears that instead of 19,000 returns, she may have instead meant to make the claim about new figures published shortly after her comments, which show that between 5 July 2024 and 22 March 2025 there were a total of 24,103 returns.
But even this higher figure still wouldn’t be more than was achieved “in any year” in the last parliament. While it is higher than the number of returns in 2020, 2021 and 2022, in 2023 there were a total of 26,730 enforced and voluntary returns.
It’s worth noting that the 24,103 figure, while the latest available, doesn’t actually cover Labour’s full first nine months in office, so it’s possible that returns over the whole nine month period may ultimately surpass those made in 2023.
And while also not covering the entire period Ms Eagle was talking about, the official data we have does suggest that returns have been higher in Labour’s first few months than in equivalent periods under the previous government. The quarterly totals for Q3 (8,827) and Q4 (8,531) 2024 were higher than any other quarterly figures since the 2019 general election.
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