Reform UK has unveiled a controversial plan to create a UK Deportation Command modelled on the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, drawing sharp criticism from rights groups. Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, outlined proposals including mass deportations, expanded surveillance, and a ban on converting churches into mosques. He described migration as an ‘invasion’, a term he defended as factually accurate.
Yusuf said the proposed command would have capacity to detain 24,000 people at any time and deport up to 288,000 annually, operating five flights per day. Currently, the UK has around 2,500 detention spaces. Experts have warned that such expansion would be extremely costly. The party also plans to scrap indefinite leave to remain, replacing it with renewable five-year work and spouse visas, and to deport over 600,000 people in its first term.
Yusuf dismissed concerns of US-style standoffs, noting that UK officers would not be armed and that policing is based on consent. He said Reform would not flinch in the face of ‘progressive outrage’ over enforcing the law. However, migrants’ rights organisations reacted with anger. Dora-Olivia Vicol of the Work Rights Centre called the plan ‘sadistic’, while Freedom from Torture’s Natasha Tsangarides described Yusuf’s speech as a ‘grotesque display of ethno-nationalism’.
