Between enforcement and insecurity: Governing deportability in the UK return regime

This article examines qualitative material on the UK return regime, drawing on 51 interviews with 55 participants conducted in 2024–2025 with Home Office officials, prison and probation staff, legal practitioners, civil-society actors, and migrants facing deportation, administrative removal, or other return action. It treats detention, immigration bail, deportation, administrative removal, and voluntary return/departure as connected elements of deportability, while distinguishing deportation from wider categories of returns and removal. The interviews show that bureaucratic fragmentation, uneven diplomatic cooperation, and unequal access to legal representation obstruct return and prolong uncertainty. The article argues that effectiveness must be understood not only as the state’s capacity to expel, but also as the racialized, classed, and criminalizing production of deportability through restricted rights, indefinite waiting, family disruption, and continuing insecurity.