AN ASIAN community leader today welcomed Home Secretary Jack Straw's move to speed up deportation of thousands of illegal immigrants claiming it would end misery and improve race relations.

Blackburn Racial Equality Council head Mr Rafique Malik cited the case of one Pakistani man who is living in the town now without benefits while appealing against a refusal of political asylum.

He said: "If he has failed to substantiate his claim for political asylum after being here for two or three years, the decision has to be made one way or another.

"Illegal immigrants might not agree, but it would be in their best interests. Thousands are living miserable lives."

He was reacting to reports today that the Blackburn MP has ordered an immediate increase in the rate at which at least 50,000 illegal immigrants are deported.

Deportation orders on some 13,000 illegal immigrants - around 50 in Lancashire - date back to before the Conservative Government introduced legislation to curb bogus asylum seekers in 1993. New figures to be published this week will show that although the number of deportation orders signed during the last Parliament doubled, the number of people removed from the country fell.

Mr Malik said that streamlining the system would benefit genuine asylum seekers, people awaiting deportation and race relations.

He added: "If people have genuine reasons to be in this country they will not be touched.

"People who have not been able to substantiate their claims for political asylum, having being given the chance for the last seven years, should be sent back.

"I don't see anybody objecting to it if they can do it without abusing the natural justice requirements."

Mr Malik is currently trying to gain financial help for the male illegal immigrant, a man in his thirties who is staying with friends in the Brookhouse area of Blackburn.

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