The available thrust directions are limited given that the laser is presumably in orbit or perhaps at a Lagrange point.

Of course once you have a multi-mega (or giga) watt laser in orbit you can pretty much dictate terms to anyone else who wants to use space. After all one person's 'space junk' is another persons 'operating surveillance satellite' :-)

I'm a much bigger fan of the idea of using drone space craft with an ion engine which has essentially a gooey blob/harpoon on the front of it, that you attach to/spear the desired object, and then turn on your ion engine to provide enough delta-v to put it where it won't hurt anyone.