By Sue Reid for the Daily Mail
Published: 22:05 GMT, 12 February 2019 | Updated: 22:05 GMT, 12 February 2019
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Hundreds of Iranian migrants who have illegally sailed in small boats to England from France have not been deported, it emerged last night.
Fewer than ten of those who have made the 22-mile journey across the Channel have been kicked out, according to Home Office figures.
Most are still in migrant centres in the Midlands and northern England despite Government promises that they would be swiftly returned to France as a ‘safe country’ in which to claim asylum.
Back in France: Deported Iranian migrant Kameh Tamjedi outside his tent in Calais
In December, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said the dramatic spike in migrants arriving on beaches in Kent was a ‘major incident’.
A total of 294 migrants, the vast majority from Iran, have reached the UK since November. On Christmas Day alone, 40 people in five boats arrived at beaches near Dover, and a further 39 arrived over one weekend in January.
But one of the handful successfully deported is young Iranian Kameh Tamjedi, who illegally arrived in the UK on Christmas Day in a small dinghy from northern France. He is thought to be the only one of the 40 who arrived on Christmas Day to have been sent back.
The Daily Mail found him this week shivering in a small green charity tent on a strip of waste land back in the French port town of Calais. He and a fellow Iranian, 25-year-old Bahman, were on the last of the five boats to arrive on Christmas morning.
Sightseeing: He arrived in the UK on Christmas Day and visited Manchester United’s football ground Old Trafford (shown), before being taken aside by immigration officials
They were rescued by a UK Border Force cutter, which spotted them without life-jackets trying to row to shore as the dinghy’s engine had broken down.
After a 12-day stay at a hostel in Liverpool, during which he visited Manchester United’s football ground Old Trafford, he was taken aside by immigration officials. He was driven by immigration officials from the hostel to a deportation centre near Heathrow. Mr
