An “extremist” mum convicted of supporting terrorism has avoided deportation on human rights grounds.
The Algerian, named only as KB, was jailed for two years in 2020 on two charges of distributing and circulating extremist material.
The woman also has “links to known terrorists” and has displayed an “extremist mindset”.
Despite this, an immigration court ruled she was at severe risk of torture in her own country.
The Upper Tribunal threw out an appeal by the Home Office.
The decision means the mother, who came to the UK illegally in 2002, is now free to stay.
The Home Office has said it will launch an appeal, saying: “We will not allow foreign criminals to exploit our laws.”
Anna-Rose Landes, Judge of the Upper Tribunal, wrote: “The Secretary of State’s appeal fails and is dismissed.”
The Home Office has confirmed it will be lodging an appeal against the decision
| GETTYThe Home Office said: “We are disappointed in the court’s decision, and we are pursuing an appeal.
“The Home Secretary has been clear that anyone settling in the UK must have a clean criminal record.
“We are also reforming how human rights laws are applied in immigration cases to reduce the number of bogus appeals and replacing the broken appeals system so we can scale up deportations.”
The news comes just days after GB News revealed that 200,000 migrants had now crossed the channel since records began in 2018.
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The grim tally was reached on Friday after a group of 70 migrants were taken to the Border Force processing centre at Dover Harbour.
The group had been on a dinghy that launched from a beach near Dunkirk just before 7.30am.
The People's Channel obtained footage of a social media video which one migrant posted as they set off from the shores of northern France on the journey across the Channel.
Just after 10am, they reached UK waters and were picked up by the Border Force vessel Ranger.
Official figures have shown how the number of people crossing by small boat has rapidly increased over the years
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At the Western Jetfoil in Dover Harbour, where migrants are offloaded, Britain's News Channel counted 70 migrants as they were taken for brief medical and security checks.
Official figures have shown how the number of people crossing by small boat has rapidly increased over the years. In 2018, just 299 crossed.
The following year, it rose to 1,843 – with migrants often arriving in small groups of less than a dozen, in dinghies bought locally in France or stolen from harbours.
By 2020, the coronavirus pandemic saw numbers crossing by dinghy escalate. With very little freight traffic crossing the Channel, migrants who once hid away in the backs of lorries were drawn to crossing by small boat instead.
By the following year, as Covid continued to have a huge effect on the flow of cross-Channel traffic, the number crossing illegally by boat shot up to 28,526.
Then 2022 saw the biggest year for small boat crossings on record, with 45,774 migrants arriving in the UK. In 2023, there was a drop off to 29,437.
However by 2024, it had risen again to 36,816.
Last year, it rose once more to 41,472. This year so far, around 7,400 have made the illegal crossing. That figure is about 35 per cent lower than the same point last year.