How exactly do we remove Illegal Immigrants?
UKIP as a party states that it will remove illegal immigrants back to their country of origin. This though creates a problem, particularly if the illegal immigrant in question has destroyed their passport, which many of them do. If they destroy their passport, even if the immigrants arrive on a scheduled flight, it may be that we still cannot trace their country of origin. OK, everyone getting on a flight is supposed to give their passport details to the airline but it is obvious that many airlines don’t carry out checks as thoroughly as do those in America and the UK. Take the case of the tragic Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that had Iranian Nationals travelling on fake passports.
So, in theory, arriving in the UK we should know the nationality of each individual from each flight but one only has to see the queues at passport control at Heathrow to know it must be quite an exercise to determine the nationality or ID of an individual arriving there and from which flight, especially if they were to wait for a busy period.
As for those arriving in the back of a lorry or other illegal means, without documentation, it is an even greater problem because we have not even a chance of a back-trace. What then happens?
Should we lock them up indefinitely – I doubt if it would be long before some human rights lawyer successfully managed to get such a prisoner out of a detention centre. With the current estimate of two million illegal immigrants in Britain, we are in no position to detain any sizeable population.
Even if we mange to identify the country of origin of the illegal, without documentation, would the country where we believe they have originated from, accept them? Slightly different, but remember a few years ago the Chinese migrants who died in a lorry? China refused to accept the bodies for repatriation. So, the onus would be on the UK and there are I am sure many countries who would not accept their own supposed nationals without documentation and of course would we repatriate people who claim they would be killed or imprisoned if they returned?
It creates a problem and one that I have considered for some time.
My solution may sound radical but I cannot think of any better way of dealing with the problem – perhaps others can.
My view is that we need to find a poor country in each continent whose government will accept people for money i.e. somewhere where we can send our illegals and we pay that country to take them – a far better way of giving overseas aid to such poor countries. If we were to offer a £1000 per migrant it would cost us one million to remove 1000 illegals. We would of course have to pay for the flight but these costs together have to be a lot cheaper than the cost of detention. It would also help in tax generation by taking these illegals out of the “black economy” to be replaced by British workers paying their fair share of tax.
It may sound a radical idea but if you consider the £12 billion or so we give in foreign aid every year (one sixth we give to the EU to give away for us) and allowing for £2500 per illegal, we could easily deport best part of 800,000 per year for this cost.
There will of course be illegals who will shout and scream that they don’t come from the country they will be deported to. Well, let them shout! The predicament will be of their own making – if they had not destroyed their documentation in the first place, then we would be quite able to deport them back to their own country. The publicity would of course mean that any future illegals will jealously guard their documentation in order that when they are caught, they will at least be deported back to their country of origin.
It would take a lot to get to this point, leaving the European Union and dismantling the Human Rights Act but long term will mean that we can get a sensible immigration policy that works.
Others may have different views and I would be interested to know how other people would solve the problem of the repatriation of illegal immigrants.
sounds good in theory but what if the poor countries do not want them? adding to their numbers would only do the same as it does here create a cheap labour economy. What of their local communities how would they feel. Sorry to say i can not see this working.
What we do need to is to remove the reasons why they want to come here. No benefits, no housing, no NHS.
Thank you for raising this difficult subject, it really
needs to be openly discussed and valid processes sought. This will never happen
under the current or a Labour regime. In reality I suspect that as much of a
solution as can be reasonably achieved will be multi faceted. Repatriation is
fraught with difficulties but may well be a part of the mix as would be
amnesty.
Any resolution must principally have the future in mind. It
would be of little help to engage in a revolving door ‘solution’ whereby we
ably remove illegal immigrants when they are discovered only to continue to
allow more to enter by virtue of leaky immigration controls.
The principle barrier must rest with the carriers of all
types to prevent them from boarding vessels in the first place. Increased
sanctions up to and including illegality of action on all forms of
transportation. On boarding, all non nationals must be irrefutably matched with
their documentation which should also be electronically retained.
Entry to the country must be the next point at which
illegality has to be identified and improved surveillance for illegal vessels
is also required but, by then, of course, we already have a problem.
Whatever we do it is certain that for some considerable time
these attempts to enter Britain will continue so we need to radically
strengthen our immigration controls and consider such innovative ideas as
suggested.
Australia does something similar to this with Papua New Guinea* but it is very problematic. Settling them in the poorer countries is very hard to do, especially as the money the British Gov’t would pay quickly disappears into government bureaucrats pockets and does not help them actually settle in their new country. You then have the illegals entering a poor society with no skills, often an inability to speak the local language and an unwillingness to work for the locals on whatever industries they have (e.g. agriculture) which just produces further conflict as they fail to integrate with the locals. The end result being a poorer quality of life for the locals who could be supported in better ways, especially in nations we should look after like the other Commonwealth Realms.
Then there are the politics of these developing nations; while one government may support the program these administrations can quickly change in the limited democracies they have. The next government may not be so supporting; so you can spend millions setting a program up only for it to collapse shortly thereafter.
In terms of identifying the source country Australia is advantaged that they come from very limited source nations; e.g. Afghans, Sri Lankans and Iraqis. Whereas Britain has most of the developing world converging on its borders from Africa, to Eastern Europe to the Middle East. They are also often found individually not in large groups as in the Australian cases on the boats; which allows you to compare multiple people of the same group to determine their origin through DNA and accent checks. Accents are generally a good way as they are harder to fake and an experienced border guard often knows; in many cases UK Border Guards know they are allowing illegals to lie their way into the country because they have no laws to use to stop them.
*PNG is used as although it was given independence in 1975 it retained Queen Elizabeth as Head of State and Australia exerts significant influence over it. They operate a shared border zone allowing Royal Australian Navy and Royal PNG Defence Force personnel cross border jurisdiction when investigating illegal arrivals and other offences e.g. illegal fishing by Indonesians.
This article relates to those already here, not those who may arrive after such a system is in place. At 800,000 deportees per year we would soon remove most of teh problem before any change of government. Once returned and if the illegals don’t like it, I am sure they will be able to illegally immigrate to their country of origin.
P.S. As for those who manage to ‘lose’ their passports during a journey, the answer is still straightforward! Returt them IMMEDIATELY to the port/airport they were last in before arriving in Britain. No need to create problems by hypothesising as the their ‘actual origin’ – a plane or a boat embarks from a specific place. That’s where THE SAME CARRIER should be made to take them back to! If they can’t keep track of the passenger’s documents, then THEY deserve to shoulder the problem – NOT BRITAIN!
But would the country which was their last port accept them? After all
it would be just our word that they came through (e,g Calais) or some
other European port and if we didn’t catch them at our port – how can we say where they came from. It is the 2 million already here that is being questioned as to how to remove – not future illegals
I think that Britain HAS TO URGENTLY revisit the question of identity cards and citizenship rights again, taking it completely seriously this time! There was far too much ‘denying me my rights…’ argument when the subject was ‘floated’ a couple or so years ago! WHAT DO WE WANT? Bombs on our streets again (remember the IRA atrocities? What the heck’s the difference?) or illegal residents firmly ‘exported’ back to source with minimum (but honest!) legal scrambling for fees or delay!
Why have ID cards? We already have passports, what’s the difference?
I don’t have any problem with the scheme but in view of the costs would prefer to see it as a last resort
Would DNA testing and language/accent recognition skills help ?
The UK cannot be the only country where illegals destroy their documents so we should look at how others cope.
They don’t cope – and as I say we are already giving £2 billion a year to the EU to give as away as part of our foreign aid budget. Hopefully in three years numbers would be much more manageable.
The carrier should have to keep copies of all travel documents. Then anyone destroying documents en route could be returned to the place of origin – this should be done immediately, no ifs, no buts – arrive without documents and you go straight back.
For new arrivals i entirely agree but this is about the 2 milion illegals already in this country
Doesn’t Australia do something similar? There would have to be a moratorium on immigration for 5/10 years at least, or the ones leaving would be replaced by arrivals. What about the one’s that have children born here, do they have rights under the British constitution? Maybe the way to do it is to make life uncomfortable as possible. No access to benefits and huge fines for those hiring or even housing illegals. It’s a conundrum not easily solved, which is just the way the LibLabCon like it
I know for example that in Kuwait, you cannot gain any form of citizenship (i.e. dual or outright) unless you are a Kuwaiti arab. Even legitimate migrants on work permits cannot gain citizenship for any children they have. If one country does it (and I am certainthere are more) why can’t we?