Labour MP corrects claim about migrant ‘deportations’

2 May 2025

Labour MP and Cabinet Office parliamentary private secretary Josh MacAlister has corrected a claim he made about the government’s record on immigration returns after he was contacted by Full Fact.

In a Facebook post published on 28 April, Mr MacAlister claimed there had been “More than 24,000 people with no right to be here deported” during Labour’s first months in government. This claim was detected by Full Fact’s AI tools. 

But as we explained in a fact check last month, the 24,000 figure refers to the total number of immigration returns carried out between 5 July 2024 and 22 March 2025. Not all of these returns meet the official definition of a ‘deportation’—in fact, the majority involved people who left the UK voluntarily, and we don’t know exactly how many of the 24,000 returns were officially classed as ‘deportations’. 

On 29 April, Mr MacAlister’s Facebook post was edited to say: “More than 24,000 people with no right to be here removed”. We’re grateful to Mr MacAlister for promptly correcting his post after we got in touch.

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