Published information on persons removed as a result of enforcement action is broken down by the type of enforcement action initiated. Enforcement action is broken down into three main categories: illegal entry action, administrative removal action and deportations.
Section 33(1) of the 1971 Act, as amended by the 1996 Act, defines an illegal entrant as a person:
(a) unlawfully entering or seeking to enter in breach of a deportation order or of the immigration laws, or
(b) entering or seeking to enter by means which include deception by another person, and includes a person who has so entered.
An overstayer is a person who stays beyond the time limited/specified/given by his/her leave and is liable to administrative removal under section 10. Prior to 2000, such persons were liable to deportation as distinct from administrative removal.
The breakdown has not been available since 2003, but for information prior to 2004, it has been published in the Command Paper Control of Immigration: Statistics United Kingdom.
Copies of this publication and others relating to immigration to the UK are available from the Library of the House and from the Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate website at:
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/immigration1.html