Mark Harper tells failed asylum seeker to go home

The Immigration Minister on Sunday told a failed Iraqi asylum seeker to go home live on the BBC current affairs broadcast Sunday Politics West.

The Gloucestershire MP, who told Esam Amin to leave the UK, said the five-time asylum applicant’s claim to stay in Britain was “ridiculous”.

The Conservative politician, a former accountant and noted Eurosceptic, recently backed the Home Office’s controversial ‘Go Home’ campaign targeting undocumented immigrants.

The campaign, which saw vans marked: “Here Illegally? Go Home or Risk Arrest,” drive around areas with high populations of ethnic minorities, has drawn widespread criticism.