Human rights lawyer sounds alarm over Britain's 'integration crisis' after shocking statistics reveal five Albanians jailed in UK daily

Susanna Siddell
Sun, 05 Apr 2026 16:14:56 +0000

A human rights lawyer has sounded the alarm over an "integration crisis" in Britain after shocking statistics revealed that five Albanians are jailed in the UK daily.

Figures from the Ministry of Justice revealed 1,865 people from the country were thrown behind bars in the year preceding last September.

Speaking about the data on the People's Channel, David Haigh shared: "This is something that's very worrying, obviously.

"As a human rights lawyer, I want to see jails and deportations done properly and fairly. But this is alarming.

TRENDING

Stories

Videos

Your Say

"This is - and also a good example of - an integration crisis," he alerted.

Mr Haigh continued: "If this number are jailed, 12 per cent of our jails are foreign nationals, and none of the so-called various different procedures that Shabana Mahmood has put in place, none of them are working."

Since 2022, Albanians have been accountable for making the illegal crossing from northern France to Dover, with plenty of those claiming asylum after touching down on British soil.

Under ex-PM Rishi Sunak, a number of agreements were set up with the Albanian agreement to speed up deportations of Albanian citizens.

Two years on, crossings had been cut to pre-2019 levels, the Migration Observatory noted.

Still, Albanians make up around nine per cent of foreign criminals behind British bars, which is the highest figure for overseas individuals.

The prison transfer agreement, set up back in 2023, was one of the deals developed in a bid to solve prison overcrowding and costs burdening British politicians.

The rule means any Albanian criminal given a prison sentence of four years and more would be deported to their home country to live out their prison sentence there.

BRITAIN'S BORDERS CRISIS - READ THE LATEST:

Easter ‘woodland retreat’ for illegal migrants AXED after ‘violent backlash’ from locals

Bangladeshi migrant sentenced to secure hospital detention after attempting to kidnap

Migrant who fled Iranian regime ‘depressed’ after being sent to Gateshead

However, such an agreement "isn't worth the paper they're written on", Mr Haigh bluntly analysed.

"Because it's essentially you need up to a certain level, which is four years of a sentence," he explained.

"You need consent. Then we end up paying as well. There we go again. We end up paying the foreign countries money to take the prisoners.

"And if we're talking about deportations, even if we have agreements with the countries, that doesn't stop the nationals bringing up reasons why they can't be deported, and they still have to be looked at individually.

"And then there we go. There's a problem again.

"So we may have these policies and processes in place, and the Government may be issuing lots of press releases about them.

"But when you look at numbers going versus numbers staying and dealing with the crisis that we have here, nothing's changed.

"It's the same old story. It's the current laws that we have. And there's no amount of tinkering around the edges."

He went on to call for a complete overall of policies and procedures - or the Government must decide to leave the European Convention on Human Rights.

He added: "Now we've effectively run out of time to amend the laws, and that will take a very long time to getting all of the people, all of the various nations to agree.

"So leaving is looking like the only option, and we can tinker as much as we want, and we can put policies and procedures and make very friendly announcements.

"But the reality is nothing's going to change until you change the actual laws that are stopping and hindering what the Government is trying to do."

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "This Government has surged the deportation of foreign national offenders with more than 8,700 removed since July 2024, up 32 per cent on the 19 months prior.

"On top of this, we are changing the law so foreign prisoners can be deported earlier than ever before."