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Immigration Service

We have said that where people have been given a custodial sentence over a given time, which we have not specified—at present it is one year for non-European economic area nationals and two years for EEA nationals—there should be a presumption of deportation. There will be cases where, in any civilised society, we will decide that we ought not to implement that because of certain circumstances, but when someone comes to this country, takes this country’s benefits and misuses the country’s hospitality to the extent that they get a prison sentence, the presumption should be that they go back to the country from which they came.