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Today in Focus

Could Farage bring ICE to the UK? – The Latest

Today in Focus

The Guardian

News, Daily News

4.65.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2026

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Reform UK has promised to create an ICE-style agency dedicated to mass deportations if the party came to power. Nigel Farage and his party’s home affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, have pledged to start a ‘UK Deportation Command’ to remove thousands of people, under plans that have been condemned as ‘sadistic’. Lucy Hough speaks to the Guardian’s deputy political editor Jessica Elgot watch on YouTube. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

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0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:11.4

Hundreds of thousands, millions of people potentially would be at risk of deportation.

0:16.2

We will create a new agency, UK deportation command, which will have just one mission to track down and

0:22.2

attain those in this country are legal.

0:24.8

So a lot of people who are here completely legally at risk of deportation as well and actually

0:31.6

makes it much more extreme than the policies that Donald Trump is pursuing in the US.

0:36.8

Reform UK has announced plans for an ICE-style agency

0:40.2

that could deport hundreds of thousands of people every year,

0:43.9

plans that Labour have condemned as divisive and un-British.

0:48.1

From The Guardian's today in focus, this is the latest with me, Lucy Hoff.

0:53.3

I'm joined by Jessica Elgetert, the Guardian's Deputy Political

0:55.9

Editor. Thanks so much for dialing in from Parliament, Jessica. It's great to see you. So Zia

1:01.6

Youssef, who just stood up in Dover at a press conference with Shadow Home Secretary,

1:07.8

this being of course at a Reform UK press conference, announcing a new

1:11.8

ICE-style agency dedicated to deporting thousands of people. These are plans that seem alarming and

1:20.3

extreme. Tell me about what Zia You-Surf has announced today. I mean, it's not reform. Don't

1:25.5

use that term, but it's clear what this agency is

1:29.7

modelled on. He says he would create this agency, the UK deportation command, which

1:35.8

be dedicated to deporting hundreds of thousands of people, as well as alongside their policy

1:41.4

of terminating the status of all of those people with indefinite leave to remain.

1:45.3

So all of those hundreds of thousands, millions of people, potentially, once you add that all of these

1:49.9

measures together, would be at risk of deportation if they don't then meet the strict criteria

...

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