The six-monthly Home Affairs Select Committee report reveals a ‘worse performance’ with an increasing number of foreign national offenders being released into the community, 4,428 in the first six months of 2014.
Foreign national offenders who are no longer in prison or immigration detention centres may still remain liable to be deported from Britain – but some manage to abscond the authorities. Only a third of foreign national offenders reported missing have been traced since 2009.
Another report published on the 17 December 2014: “An Inspection of Overstayers: How the Home Office handles the cases of individuals with no right to stay in the UK”, revealed that the Home Office does not know the total number of illegal migrants who enter the UK through deception or clandestine channels and those who are overstaying their visa. Research suggests the number could be between 400,000 and 900,000.
The outgoing Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, John Vine also found that since 2008, the Home Office has failed to deport 173,562 people who have been refused leave to stay in the UK, so called ‘overstayers’.
Responding to the reports, Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee Keith Vaz said: “Our immigration system has left A&E and has entered intensive care”.
Biggest Election Issue
The issue of immigration — highlighted further by the rise in popularity of the UK Independence Party, UKIP — continues to dominate the political agenda above other matters including poverty, taxation and crime. Every mainstream political party is talking about it (even when they’ve been advised not to). And the conversation is set to continue for the next five months.
Prime Minister David Cameron has taken to the right wing tabloid newspaper, The Express, to inform the British public of his plans to curb migration.
“The free movement of people in Europe was never meant to be about criminals, beggars, rough sleepers and fraudsters traveling around the continent – so we want stronger powers of deportation and longer re-entry bans to stop them coming back,” he said.
David Cameron reassured the readers by offering “competence on immigration with a clear and workable plan. In contrast, all our opponents offer is chaos”.
The government had pledged to get net migration down below 100,000 by the next general election. Home Secretary Theresa May has already admitted that she has missed this target. The backlog of immigration cases has reached 304,000; almost 3,000 illegal immigrants attempt to enter Britain each month.
Whether it's ‘competence or chaos’, the immigration patient has until May 1st 2015 to stabilise and be discharged from the intensive care unit.
