UK Rewrites Deportation Law to Remove Released Grooming Gang Leader

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood is amending the Immigration Act 1971 to strip an exemption that protected Commonwealth citizens arriving before 1973 from deportation. The change targets Shabir Ahmed, 73, released after 14 years for 30 child rape convictions and stripped of citizenship. Officials say the revision will carve out serious offenders while safeguarding the Windrush generation. Pakistan's refusal to recognize Ahmed's nationality presents a separate barrier: deportation law changes mean little if the destination country won't accept him.