Thread: Rise in illegal immigrants entering Britain

Rise in illegal immigrants entering Britain
The number of illegal immigrants discovered hiding in lorries after entering Britain has more than doubled in two years.

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 9:34PM GMT 07 Feb 2009

More than 3,300 were picked up in just an eight month period in 2008, compared with only 1,400 in an entire 12-month period in 2006/07.

Critics said the sharp rise pointed to a major weakness with Britain's border controls and warned that hi-tech lorry searches introduced at French ports seven years ago may have been undermined by bureaucracy and money-saving initiatives.

Any illegal immigrant who makes it on to British soil can claim asylum, but those detected before they enter the country -- for example, at the French ports -- can be refused entry.

Between April and November last year, the UK Border Agency's office in Dover alone handled nearly 1,200 illegal immigrants who had been discovered in the UK hiding in lorries.

A further 2,100 were received by other branches of the agency across England, Wales and Scotland.

The rise is believed to coincide with the privatisation of lorry searches carried out in French ports, which used to be conducted by British immigration officials using X-ray machines, heartbeat sensors and carbon dioxide monitors as part of a "juxtaposed controls" deal between the UK, French and Belgian governments. Some searches are now carried out by a private company.

British search teams have also been banned from using X-ray machines in France on health and safety grounds, when French authorities made the bizarre demand that British officials should obtain written permission from stowaways before using the machines to detect them.

Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, who uncovered the figures, said: "For years our border controls have been shambolic, and the increase in lorry stowaways is just another example of the problem.

"We need a joined-up national border force with police powers to ensure that only legal migrants enter the country."

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch pressure group, said of the figures: "This looks like a very rapid increase and, of course, there will be many more who are not detected.

"The Government's failure to remove illegal immigrants is clearly encouraging still more to try their luck. We need a virtuous circle of rapid and effective removal, not a vicious circle of declining effectiveness."

Adam Holloway, Conservative MP for Gravesham in Kent, who once spent a week living as a "refugee" at the now-closed Sangatte camp in France, said: "I think these figures are probably just the tip of the iceberg.

"I would like the Home Office to explain in proper terms exactly what is happening, and talk us through the dramatic rise of people getting into this country illegally in the last 10 years."

Every night, hundreds of illegal immigrants sleep rough on waste ground on the outskirts of Calais, as they have done since the closure of the Red Cross hostel at Sangatte in 2002.

The migrants, mostly young men including Iraqis, Iranians and Afghans, live on charity food handouts and making regular attempts to stow away on lorries heading to Britain.

In 2007, searches and other measures such as passport checks before boarding ferries or trains led to 17,000 people being stopped, 12,000 of whom were caught hiding.

Illegal immigrants who are discovered hidden in lorries, as well as those using other stowaway routes, are more likely to be placed in immigration detention at the Oakington centre near Cambridge, where their claims will be fast-tracked.

A UK Border Agency spokesman said: "We are committed to responding to every police request where they arrest people who have been smuggled into the UK in lorries.

"We work closely with the police, through new Immigration Crime Partnerships, to target together the harm caused to Britain by illegal immigration.

"We have one of the toughest border crossings in the world at Calais. Over the past five years we've stopped 88,500 attempts by illegal migrants to cross the channel, and searched nearly three million lorries."

Hauliers can face fines of up to £2,000 for each illegal immigrant found in their vehicles.

In 2006, the ringleader of one of Europe's biggest people-smuggling rackets was jailed for eight-and-a-half years after making millions of pounds smuggling an estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants into Britain over a decade.

Ramazan Zorlu, 43, and his north London gang, packed six people at a time into a metal "coffin" measuring 6ft wide by 1ft deep which was strapped to the underside of lorries in a bid to evade the detection machines.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstop ... itain.html

British search teams have also been banned from using X-ray machines in France on health and safety grounds, when French authorities made the bizarre demand that British officials should obtain written permission from stowaways before using the machines to detect them.

Let's see. France either wants to exert its expertise of finding illegals trying to get to the British Isles, or they have become somehow unhinged with all the nuclear power plants in that country, or Al Queida has managed to poison the water of all governmental buildings. It all borders on an insanity in their foreign relations as a willing partner of the EU.