The rules are all well and good, sp, but as has been adequately demonstrated by this and many other cases the “..automatically sent back whence they came..” part of the deal is not rigorously enforced.
The problem is that people entering the UK without proper documentation are not held securely and deported at the earliest opportunity. Instead they are given directions to get to Lunar House to “register their particulars” and, not surprisingly, many of them don’t quite make it to Croydon. Many of them arrive by unconventional means (often among cargo in the back of lorries) and almost all of them arrive without papers. (Those that had any to enable them to board an aircraft flush them down the kharzi en route). This makes it difficult to “send them back” because we know not whence they came.
The answer is quite simple. Instead of in a common arrivals hall at UK airports immigration procedures should be undertaken at the aircraft gate. The origin of any illegal arrivals would thus be known and they can be returned, at the airline’s expense, to their place of departure. In ferry ports it is much simpler. Most ferry ports in the UK deal with traffic from only one country.
It is a bit naïve to simply post “the rules” and imply that all is well when it very clearly is not.
Whilst it is true, Fred, that nothing in the HRA (or the ECHR) provides legitimate protection which did not exist in domestic law (hence my long held contention that neither is necessary), those pieces of legislation most definitely provide additional protection against deportation. In particular Article 8 (the right to a family life) is not provided for under domestic law (other than the HRA which is based on the ECHR). Furthermore, the courts have stretched this provision to ridiculous extremes allowing people to remain here under Article 8 who actually have no family connections in the UK at all.
It is clear that the UK is being taken for a ride by vast numbers of people and that once they have landed illegally in the UK their removal is not “automatic an immediate” by any means. In fact in a large number of cases, so difficult and tortuous is the process that it often does not happen at all.