Asylum-seeker deportations fall to lowest level in five years

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Only 3,120 were deported between July and September - despite a backlog of more than 400,000 cases.

Officials said they had been concentrating on removing foreign criminals who pose the most danger to the public.

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Staying: Only 3,120 asylum seekers were deported between July and September

But, in a letter sent to MPs yesterday, Border and Immigration Agency chief Lin Homer admitted three out of every four convicts involved in the original foreign prisoner scandal are still here.

Only 261 of the criminals freed in the blunder which cost then Home Secretary Charles Clarke his job 18 months ago have been deported.

Some 752 are still living in Britain - of whom 127 have not been traced.

The 3,120 failed asylum seekers booted out is 18 per cent less than the same period last year, and 5 per cent less than in the three months between April and June this year.

It is the lowest number of removals since the first three months of 2002, when the asylum crisis was reaching a peak and ministers promised dramatic improvements.

At the same time, there was a jump of 19 per cent in new asylum applications between the second and third quarters of this year - with 7,090 arriving between July and September.

Tory immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "This is another sign that the Government's tough talk on immigration and asylum is not matched by effective action.

"The fall in the number of removals means the Government is failing completely to make inroads into the backlog of half a million people who have no right to be in this country."

The immigration agency said it had removed a record 3,500 foreign prisoners so far this year and was on course to hit a target set by Gordon Brown of 4,000 by the end of the year.