£25 milion cost of 'bribing' foreign criminals to go home
Half of foreign prisoners kicked out of the country are now “bribed” to go home costing the taxpayer millions of pounds, The Telegraph can disclose.
Almost 7,000 criminals have been removed from Britain in the past 16 months, but 47 per cent went only after taking advantage of a voluntary return programme which offers up to £1,500 in cash, a leaked document revealed. It also shows the trend is growing – just one in three prisoners deported in 2009 left under the voluntary programme.
The numbers mean that since the scheme began in 2006 the taxpayer has spent between £20 million and £25 million on persuading criminals who have no right to remain in the UK to go home.
The Coalition faced criticism last year after it emerged that it had trebled the value of the cash incentive to clear Britain's jails and detention centres of foreign offenders. Those who agree to go before they have even finished their sentence receive the largest payouts.
The incentives, first offered by the Labour government to avoid drawn-out deportation battles, were criticised by the Tories when in opposition.
Figures for last year have not been officially published but a UK Border Agency document meant for internal distribution shows that between January last year and last month, 6,989 foreign criminals were deported. Of these, 3,338 went under the repatriation scheme at a cost of between £7 million and £12 million.
In October last year, the Coalition reduced the value of the package to between £500 and £1,500 but made it all available in cash for the first time.
Earlier in the year the package was worth between £3,000 and £5,000 but only £500 of that was available in cash.
Between 2006 and 2009 some 3,860 offenders took advantage of the scheme at a cost of around £12 million.
One immigration source said the packages were "essentially bribes", adding: "If we could offer UK criminals such fantastic sums for their retraining, resettlement and housing, reoffending would drop massively." Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: "There is a case for encouraging returns but when it becomes quite so popular one wonders if it has gone a little too far."
In opposition, Dominic Grieve, who is now the Attorney General, called the scheme "simply outrageous".
Damian Green, who is now the Immigration Minister, said in opposition that Labour had abandoned any attempt at removing foreign criminals and was instead "paying them to leave". Now, he says the scheme is "practical" and will save money. The Home Office last night said it refused to comment on leaked documents.
SOURCE
Recent posts at CIS below
See here for the blog. The CIS main page is here.
1. The Problem with Obama's Immigration Plan (Op-ed)
2. Romney and Huntsman on Illegal Aliens (Blog)
3. New Wrinkle in H-1B Fraud: Stealing from the Taxpayers, Not the Workers (Blog)
4. 9/11's Triumvirate of Terrorist Travel: al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and Iran (Blog)
5. DoJ Zaps Discrimination vs. U.S. Citizens, but Very Rarely (Blog)
6. Golden Parachutes for Illegal Chipotle Workers? (Blog)
7. Amnesty for All Haitians in U.S., Save those Arriving in Last Four Months (Blog)
8. Security Gaps Still Present in Visa Waiver Program (Blog)
9. Senate Holds Hearing on Immigration Courts, II (Blog)
10. Senate Holds Hearing on Immigration Courts, I (Blog)
11. NYT Exposes Fraud in Yet Another Foreign Worker Program (Blog)
12. Border Exchange (Blog)
13. Post-Modern Journalistic Partisanship (Blog)
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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