We've 'lost' 74,500 asylum seekers in UK admits border chief
Officials have lost track of nearly 75,000 asylum seekers – and are giving up hope of ever finding them. Hundreds of thousands of case files were discovered in boxes at the Home Office more than five years ago in a major immigration scandal.
Last night the acting head of the UK Border Agency said staff will finish processing the backlog of more than 400,000 in July. But Jonathan Sedgwick was forced to admit fewer than one in ten of those has been identified and successfully deported. More than 161,000 have been given the right to stay in Britain, some of whom may have committed criminal offences. Many will have acquired the right as result of staying here for so long because of delays in dealing with their status.
Some 74,500 cases have been placed in a ‘controlled archive’ after officials could find ‘no trace’ of their existence, Mr Sedgwick said. More than 120,000 have been written off as errors or duplicates, and a total of 36,000 have been removed from the country or left voluntarily.
The handling of the backlog emerged as Mr Sedgwick gave evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Committee chairman Keith Vaz said: ‘It seems that 74,500 of these cases are people who have in effect gone missing, you don’t know where they are. Although you have cleared your backlog, you have taken 74,500 of these cases and stuck them in the controlled archive room.
‘Then you have granted indefinite leave to 40 per cent of the 400,000. How is that clearing the backlog and achieving the Government’s target of reducing immigration?’
Astonishingly, Mr Sedgwick said some of the missing asylum seekers ‘might have died’. He said: ‘It was absolutely not the case that we have closed the door and forgotten about them. ‘We have checked every single one of them against databases to see if there is any track of them. The conclusion of that may be that they have left the country – some of them might have died.’
He admitted some given the right to stay may have committed criminal offences, but could not say how many. He denied that allowing them to remain in the UK amounted to an ‘amnesty’ for asylum seekers, saying: ‘I don’t accept that it’s an amnesty.
‘We have removed very substantial numbers – 36,000 people have been removed as a result of this programme – but as a result of the passage of time additional rights accrue.’
An audit of the asylum backlog in 2006 estimated it could be as high as 283,000 cases – a figure dismissed by Labour ministers. However, a further audit revealed the total was between 400,000 and 450,000. Then home secretary John Reid set the target of clearing the backlog within five years.
Cases placed in the archive are checked against 19 watch lists and databases. If no match is found within six months, the case is considered concluded.
Last month a National Audit Office report found officials had ‘no idea’ where 180,000 migrants whose visas have expired since December 2008 were.
SOURCE
Alabama House Passes Arizona-Style Immigration Bill
The Alabama House of Representatives voted Tuesday to pass an immigration bill modeled after Arizona's, that would give law enforcement officials the authority to demand papers from people in cases "where reasonable suspicion exists that a person is an unauthorized alien," and jail those suspected of being in the country illegally until their immigration status can be confirmed.
The bill, which passed the House by a vote of 73-28, makes it a crime to be an illegal immigrant in the state of Alabama, and could lead to trespassing charges for those found to be in the state unlawfully. In Alabama, trespassing carries a sentence of up to a year.
Kim Chandler of The Birmingham News reports that the bill's sponsor, Rep. Micky Hammon (R) said during debate that it "attacks every aspect of an illegal alien's life" and "is designed to make it difficult for them to live here so they will deport themselves."
The bill will now go up for a vote in the state Senate.
Arizona was the first state to sign into law an immigration bill of this kind. Its statute required "a reasonable attempt to be made to determine the immigration status of a person" who law enforcement comes into contact with, "if reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S."
The law sparked much outrage last year, due to fears that it would encourage racial profiling in the state. President Obama condemned it as well, saying that it "threaten[s] to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans."
A number of other states have followed Arizona's lead, including Georgia, which passed one bill in the House last month, and South Carolina, which passed one in its Senate.
SOURCE
Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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