DAN HODGES: Mass deportations are taking place under Labour... but Starmer's too squeamish to admit it

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You’ve probably never heard the name Tom Homan. But you soon will. And more importantly, so will the 11million undocumented migrants currently residing in the United States.

Homan has been appointed as Donald Trump’s ‘Border Tsar’, responsible for – in the slightly sanitised wording of the President-elect’s official statement – the ‘Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin’.

But he likes to define his role in more robust terms. ‘I got a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden’s released in our country in violation of federal law,’ he announced to the Republican National Convention in July. ‘You better start packing now – you’re damn right – because you’re going home.’

His words repelled liberal America. But they resonated within the blue-collar, swing states Trump needed to win to secure the White House. ‘We’re going to seal up those borders!’ he declared triumphantly to his ecstatic supporters at his election night victory rally.

Tomorrow, our own Government is set to release a new raft of immigration figures. And buried within them will be an interesting statistic. One that reveals that since their election, Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have been channelling their own inner Tom Homan.

According to Home Office figures, since the election in July the number of illegal migrants removed from the UK has jumped by almost 20 per cent. The number of removals of foreign offenders from British jails has increased by 14 per cent. The number of deportation flights has soared, returning migrants to a raft of countries including Albania, Poland, Romania, Vietnam, Timor, Nigeria and Ghana. And included in those removals were the three biggest mass deportations in UK history, with over 600 people returned overall.

What’s more, the success of Starmer and Cooper is directly linked to their following of the Tom Homan deportation playbook. Homan has committed to initially targeting foreign offenders, and those who have already been refused leave to remain in the United States.

On arriving in the Home Office Cooper immediately redeployed hundreds of officials from the previous Government’s doomed Rwanda scheme, and instructed them to begin focusing on foreign offenders and those nationals from countries with historically low rates of asylum approvals.

Tom Homan has been appointed US 'border tzar' by President-elect Donald Trump

Homan has pledged to deploy the full resources of US law enforcement behind his deportation programme. Cooper has similarly used the police and intelligence agencies to coordinate the British Government’s own deportation efforts, by targeting and mounting raids on those businesses and sectors of the economy with a high number of illegal workers from countries who traditionally have no right to asylum.

Homan has vowed to target the South American drug cartels responsible for the trafficking of illegal migrants across the US border. And while Keir Starmer is yet to commit to sending the SAS after the heirs of Pablo Escobar, Yvette Cooper and Foreign Secretary David Lammy yesterday announced the reintroduction of visa controls with Colombia, after Rishi Sunak’s decision to lift them in late 2022 saw a surge of migration and bogus asylum claims.

‘On day one the mass deportations will begin!’ Donald Trump boasted. Well, day one of Starmer’s Government saw the beginning of the mass deportations here. But the problem is the Prime Minister doesn’t seem to want anyone to know about it.

There have been no major speeches highlighting the Government’s success. Or pictures of Starmer waving handcuffed, hardened foreign lags farewell. And certainly no cheering Labour supporters gleefully hurling ‘Make Britain Great Again’ hats into the air, while chanting ‘Send them back!’

‘We’ve got a good story to tell on deportations,’ one Cabinet ally of Starmer told me, ‘but Keir’s too squeamish about selling it. There’s part of him that’s worried how the party will react.’

One Home Office source I spoke to rejected this characterisation. They claimed Starmer is very supportive of the policy, and that diplomatic protocols prevent the Government giving the deportations more publicity. ‘The issue is that our officials and the Foreign Office have done a good job in securing a raft of new return agreements. But each of the countries stipulates, “We’ll take them back, so long as you don’t make a big fuss about them”.’

But there is definitely broader internal Labour politics at play. As another Cabinet minister told me: ‘Remember when Ed Miliband produced a few mugs saying we’d be tough on immigration? Our own MPs went nuts. Now imagine the reaction if they realise we’re actually ahead of Trump when it comes to mass deportations.’

Starmer should ignore the bleeding-hearts on his own backbenches. And he should point across the Atlantic to the hypocrisy among ‘progressives’ surrounding the appointment of Homan. In 2015, the former police officer was actually awarded a Presidential citation from Barack Obama(itals) for his then work as a Director of Immigration Enforcement. And of over the course of his two terms, Obama oversaw the removal of over 5million illegal aliens, earning him the nickname ‘Deporter-in-Chief’.

Since the election of Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper in July, the number of illegal migrants removed from the UK has jumped by almost 20 per cent

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It can be argued there is a case to be made for the benefits of migration. But there is no case to be made for illegal migration. And there is even less of a case to be made for clogging up UK jails with foreign offenders at a time when the impending collapse of the penal system is seeing the early release of killers and sex offenders.

So Keir Starmer needs to get out and start selling his policy. Actually, never mind just selling it, he should be shouting it from the rooftops.

Some of the language of Homan and Trump may grate on woke ears. But that’s tough. As the new border-tsar made clear, the truly progressive policy is to stamp out on the trade in – and exploitation of – vulnerable migrants.

Defending his hard-line stance under the previous Trump administration, Homan unapologetically declared: ‘How many women were saved from exploitation? How many kids were not abused, or killed by coyotes? How many bad guys did we prevent from entering our communities? We’ll never know the exact number, but we made a difference.’

Certain members of his party may not want to hear it, but Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper are also making a difference. Under Labour the mass deportations have started. Now the Prime Minister needs to make sure everyone knows it.