UK to electronically tag illegal migrants to track movement

TThe UK government is to launch a 12-month pilot scheme that will involve some illegal migrants seeking asylum in the country being electronically tagged to keep track of their movements, it emerged on Saturday.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended the plans as he said it was essential that people who arrived through dangerous routes on small boats and hidden in lorries could not simply “vanish”.

Documents linked to the UK Home Office proposals suggest that the government wants to obtain data on how frequently asylum seekers abscond.

“This is a very, very generous welcoming country. Quite right too. I am proud of it, but when people come here illegally, when they break the law, it is important that we make that distinction,” Johnson told reporters on his return from Ukraine.

“That is what we are doing with our Rwanda policy. That is what we are doing to make sure that asylum seekers can’t just vanish into the rest of the country,” he said.

The Rwanda policy of flying out some migrants to the east African nation has proved contentious, with the first flight grounded by last-minute injunctions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) earlier this week.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel labelled the ruling as “absolutely scandalous” and “opaque”. “We don’t know who the judges are, we don’t know who the panel are, we haven’t actually had a judgment – just a press release and a letter saying we can’t move this person under rule 39,” Patel told ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

The government has said the scheme, which has come at an initial cost of GBP 120 million, would discourage people traffickers from facilitating dangerous crossings in unsafe boats.