WE CAN’T KICK OUT 1M ILLEGAL MIGRANTS
MORE than a million illegal immigrants are unlikely to ever be removed from Britain, a former border chief claims.
David Wood, an ex-directorgeneral of immigration enforcement at the Home Office, told MPs last night there were “enormous difficulties” in finding the cheats and returning them overseas.
He also claimed the Home Office urgently needed extra resources to strengthen UK borders after Brexit. But his admission triggered fury among Tory MPs amid concern that officials are failing to get a grip on illegal immigration.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: “It is not acceptable for officials to throw
their hands up in the air and say nothing can be done – that would be tantamount to declaring an amnesty on illegal immigration.”
Mr Davies, MP for Shipley, added: “The Government should be rounding up people who are not here legally and kicking them out of the country. I don’t think taxpayers would expect any less.
“And the question of how they got here in the first place needs to be answered.”
Nigel Mills, a fellow Tory who represents Amber Valley, said: “I am sure my constituents would be horrified to hear that so many people get here illegally and seem to be able to live, work and rent homes here when we are supposed to have rules to stop them doing that.
“If we are going to have an immigration system that people have confidence in we need to find them and move them on.
“This can’t just be overlooked as if it is too hard to do anything about because that would lead to chaos and be an incentive to people to break the rules. The rules need to be clear and they need to be enforced.”
Charlie Elphicke, Tory MP for Dover, said: “We need to tackle the problem of people overstaying on visas and make sure criminals cannot get here in the first place.”
Mr Wood spoke out at a hearing of the Commons Home Affairs Committee at Westminster yesterday.
He said: “There’s probably over a million foreigners here illegally at the moment. There’s a large number, so no one could ever remove those really.”
He said there needs to be a “consequence” that if you don’t abide by the immigration rules there is a “real risk of being removed”.
Official statisticians say it is impossible to accurately quantify the number of people in the country unlawfully. In an estimate 12 years ago, a Home Office assessment put the figure at 430,000 – but that has been rising a minimum 150,000 a year, according to a report earlier this year by think-tank Civitas.
Net migration – the difference between numbers officially arriving in and leaving the UK – was running at an estimated 246,000 in the year ending March 2017.
The committee is examining the capacity of the immigration system to cope with Brexit, including the task of documenting three million EU citizens currently in the country and preparing for a new post-departure regime.
Mr Wood, who retired from the Home Office in 2015, said: “I don’t think under current resources that the challenge of Brexit can be met, and certainly not met smoothly.”
He added: “It’s no good thinking in two years’ time that we suddenly need 2,000 staff – the staff have to be trained.”
John Vine, a former chief inspector of borders and immigration, described the bureaucratic task facing the Government as “unprecedented” and said it would require a “considerable” increase to staffing levels.
SO NOW the truth is out: there are more than one million illegal migrants in this country who will never be forced to leave. Should we be surprised? It has been obvious ever since the Labour Party under the leadership of Tony Blair decided to open this country’s borders to anyone and everyone that we have lost control over whom we allow in. But this must be stopped right now.
The overpowering motive behind this country voting for Brexit was to cut back the number of immigrants entering this country – and they were the legal ones, citizens of the EU. But these figures refer to people we know little about, with very different values from our own.
And it is a disgrace that in this age of increased terrorist attacks people who may wish us harm have not only been able to evade border security but now will be at liberty to live out the rest of their lives in this country.
As David Wood, who presented the report said, there must be consequences and in the case of illegal immigration this means deportation. As matters stand this is sending out a terrible message to the rest of the world: if you manage to get into Britain, you can stay here for ever.
We want our borders back and we want them now.