56,000 illegal migrants ‘lost’ by the Home Office

Dossiers reveal failure to monitor foreigners who face deportation

THE Home Office has lost track of nearly 60,000 illegal immigrants who face being booted out of Britain – including more than 750 foreign criminals, a watchdog has revealed. Another 80,000 foreign nationals are being moni- tored, meaning a total of around 140,000 have been told they could be deported.

Two reports laid bare a failure to monitor foreign nationals who are liable to be removed. It follows a former Home Office chief’s admission last month that Britain is home to more than a million illegal migrants with huge numbers ‘ under the radar’.

David Wood, head of immigration enforcement until 2015, told MPs few of the illegals were ever likely to be sent home.

Foreign citizens are meant to report as often as weekly to immigration centres or police if there are potential grounds to deport them.

It includes those caught entering the UK unlawfully or overstaying a visa, criminals and asylum seekers. In the year to September 2016, this case load fluctuated between 79,000 and 84,000.

But the dossiers published yesterday revealed there were another 55,974 ‘declared absconders’ who had disappeared.

It means that despite being ordered to sign in with authorities, countless illegal immigrants had ‘gone to ground’ and were working in the socalled black economy, illegally claiming benefits and even voting. Some had been missing for at least eight years. Among the total, 753 criminals, including killers and sex offenders, had disappeared after being released into the community.

Guidelines say offenders who complete sentences should be detained only if deporting them is a realistic prospect. The latest figures show 5,728 overseas criminals had been freed on to the streets.

One report by the watchdog focused on how the Home Office monitors foreign national offenders (FNOs) as measures are put in place for their deportation.

The other looked at the department’s Reporting and Offender Management teams, which monitor those served with notices that they could be deported, and try to encourage them to leave voluntarily.

The reports warn there is ‘little evidence’ effective action is being taken to find the vast bulk of absconders – and FNOs can fail to attend meetings up to 19 times before the alarm is raised. A third of planned removals of criminals failed – 7,772 out of 24,289 dating back to 2014-15.

A team set up in 2009 to reduce immigration abuse by finding missing FNOs had only 11 staff.

The inquiry concludes that the difficulties involved in asking 80,000 people to report regularly to a Home Office centre or police station has compromised efforts to secure their removal from Britain.

David Bolt, independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration said attempts to create a ‘hostile environment’ for illegal immigrants had backfired.

Foreign criminals were no longer being given help to find somewhere to live after release, with the result that the Home Office no longer had a fixed address for some.

Mr Bolt said there was ‘considerable evidence’ that individuals were making last-minute asylum claims to avoid being sent home. Some used human rights laws, while others did not have travel documents and could not be removed.

He added: ‘In both cases, I found people and processes under strain. The numbers required to report routinely mean it is extremely difficult for staff at reporting centres … encouraging voluntary departures or resolving barriers to removal.

‘The removal of FNOs is regularly frustrated, often by last-minute legal challenges, and monitoring nondetained FNOs effectively is a challenge and one that raises obvious public protection concerns.’

Lord Green, of think-tank MigrationWatch, said: ‘It is astonishing and disturbing there should be such a very large number of people who no longer have the right to be in Britain … about whom the Home Office have simply given up.’

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: ‘I think there will be widespread alarm at these figures. Effectively they are confirming that tens of thousands of foreigners with dodgy immigration status are lost.’

The Home Office said it had removed more than 38,600 foreign offenders since 2010.

Immigration minister Brandon Lewis admitted elements of the reports ‘make for difficult reading’, and said there would be a review of ‘how we establish and maintain contact’ with illegal immigrants.

‘Astonishing and disturbing’