The UK Border Control Fiasco Continues
Only 40% of border scandal foreign criminals have been deported in the last six years
- Fewer than 400 of the 1,000 foreigners released from jail since 2006 have been removed from the UK
- At least 50 have disappeared completely
- Immigration minister Damian Green blames chaos on previous government
By Jack Doyle of the Daily Mail
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In 2006, the Labour government was rocked by revelations that more than 1,000 foreign nationals had been let out without being considered for deportation.
By November last year, fewer than 400 had been removed from the country or deported, and more than 50 have still not been found. Hundreds more remain here despite their cases having been concluded.
Damning report: The Home Affairs Select Committee said
UKBA was failing to fulfil its basic functions, and listed a series of major
failures in recent years
The figures emerged in a damning report into the work of the UK Border Agency by MPs.
The Home Affairs Select Committee said UKBA was failing to fulfil its basic functions, and listed a series of major failures in recent years.
A lack of robust data means officials are unclear about exactly what is going on, the report said.
The foreign prisoners scandal saw 1,013 offenders released without officials even considering whether they should be deported. Of the total, 433 have had their cases concluded but have still not been kicked out of the country.
In many cases, criminals use human rights laws to challenge their removal, or officials struggle to secure passports from their home countries, which do not want to take them back.
Some 397 have been removed, while 98 are said to be ‘going through the deportation process’.
Another 57 have not been located, 20 are serving another custodial sentence and the remainder are duplicate cases.
‘Six years is far too long for this situation to be resolved and these cases should have been concluded long ago,’ the committee said. ‘The mistakes made which allowed the release of these prisoners should not be allowed to re-occur in any part of the UK Border Agency.’
'UKBA appears unable to focus on its key task': Home
Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz, who has conveniently forgotten that he was part of the government that created this scandalous fiasco.
The report also shows that one in five of the foreign prisoners released in 2010/11 are still here. Of the 5,010 released in the 2010 financial year, a total of 1,060 had not been removed by November last year.
Some 520 were allowed to remain and 3,320 were removed from the country.
Committee chairman Labour MP Keith Vaz said: ‘The reputation of the Home Office, and by extension, the UK Government, is being tarnished by the inability of the UK Border Agency to fulfil its basic functions.
'The foreign national prisoner issue and the asylum backlog were scandals which first broke in 2006, six years ago.
‘UKBA appears unable to focus on its key task of tracking and removing illegal immigrants, over-stayers or bogus students from the country.’
The report also highlighted the decision to mothball airport iris scanners, which cost £9.1million, just five years after they were introduced.
This morning Immigration Minister Damian Green said the UKBA had improved from a state of 'complete chaos' when the Government took office two years ago.
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Mr Green said: 'It is getting better slowly, probably too slowly than most people would want - some areas are getting better faster than other areas.
'The asylum service is immeasurably much better than it was three or four years ago.
'We start deportation action on foreign national prisoners now 18 months before the end of their sentence. As a result of that, last year we removed over 4,500 foreign criminals, and 45% of those were by the end of their sentence.'
Mr Green said the Government had to 'clean up' a legacy of mistakes on dealing with foreign criminals and ensure the errors were not repeated.
He added: 'We're not stopping here and I'm not saying the system is perfect yet.
'In the coming months, we will be changing immigration laws to cut the abuse of the Human Rights Act, which has been used by far too many people to delay the process of removal.'
The reputation of UKBA was severely damaged earlier this year in a highly critical report and Home Secretary Theresa May split the agency in two after it emerged border controls were relaxed repeatedly without ministerial approval.
A report by John Vine, the chief inspector of UKBA, found 500,000 passengers had passed into the UK on Eurostar trains without proper passport checks against a terror and crime watchlist.
His investigation was prompted by revelations that border controls at ports and airports were relaxed last summer without ministers’ consent.
Immigration minister Damian Green said: ‘This Government has chosen to publish more information than ever before, information which members of the public and Parliament can use to analyse our performance
This problem was created by the Labour Party, and has been perpetuated by the LibCon coalition, who have done NOTHING to address the chaos in our immigration and border control system. The underlying problem is our membership of the EU, which dictates our border control rules, and Cleggeron's love of all things EU. They are not listening to you. There will be no real change until the British people put their traditional political allegiances aside and vote for it.
AW
