1,500 foreign criminals 'held beyond sentence' in Britain

Britain is being forced to pay tens of millions of pounds to keep nearly 1,500 foreign criminals behind bars beyond the term of their sentence as they fight deportation.

The cost could reach the equivalent of £55 million a year as more than 500 foreign prisoners are held in jails after their sentences should have ended while almost 1,000 are being kept in immigration removal centres, figures showed.

Prime Minister David Cameron pledged nearly two years ago to put an end to agreements that mean foreign offenders cannot be returned home without their consent.

Tory MP Priti Patel, who obtained the figures through a parliamentary question, said the number of foreign criminals who can not be deported showed the Government needed to scrap the Human Rights Act.

“Ministers must remove dangerous foreign criminals quickly from Britain,” she said.

“Taxpayers should not be paying for foreign offenders to remain in the UK after their prison sentence has ended.  “It’s a disgrace they’re allowed to remain here for such a long time, which is only made worse by the Human Rights Act which must be scrapped so we can send foreign criminals back home as quickly as possible.”

Ms Patel went on: “There’s no doubt that the Government wants to do more to remove foreign criminals from Britain.

“But we have to look at issues like the Human Rights Act which clearly hinders them from doing that.  “We can no longer sit back because clearly it’s having a serious impact on the number of foreign criminals in the country.”

Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister, said: “In September 2012, 547 foreign national offenders were detained by the UK Border Agency in prisons following completion of their custodial sentence.  “A further 919 foreign national offenders were detained beyond the end of their sentence in immigration removal centres.’

He could not say for how long each prisoner had been detained.

However, the latest figures from the Prison Reform Trust showed the average number of days taken to remove a foreign prisoner at the end of their sentence has fallen from 131 days in 2008 to 77 in 2011.

Each prison place costs an average of almost £38,000 a year, while immigration detention costs £102 per night, the trust’s figures also showed.

The number of foreign criminals awaiting deportation was released on Tuesday as ministers signed a new deal to ensure a wave of Albanian prisoners held in England and Wales will be sent back to their home country to finish their sentences.

The move, which is expected to save taxpayers around £25 million over the next 10 years, should see the first batch of prisoners deported in around two months time.

It is the first agreement providing for transfer from the UK to outside the European Union and Albanian nationals make up the 16th highest foreign national population in English and Welsh prisons.

A total of 77 out of nearly 200 Albanian prisoners who are currently eligible for transfer under the agreement between the two nations have been referred to the UK Border Agency for deportation, the Ministry of Justice said.

Jeremy Wright, the Prisons Minister, said: “The British Government wants more foreign national prisoners to serve their sentences in their home country.”

In April 2010, there were 701 foreign offenders detailed in jail after their sentence, which fell to 516 in April 2011 but rose again to 552 in the same month in 2012, the figures revealed.

The number of people held in immigration detention centres after completing a prison sentence has fallen from 1,213 in April 2010 to 812 in April 2012.

SOURCE





Immigration Enforcement Law Proposed in Montana

It’s not a magnet for undocumented immigrants. And that's just the way at least one Montana lawmaker likes it.  State Rep. David Howard, a Republican known well in Montana for his take-no-prisoners stance on illegal immigration, is determined to keep the state nicknamed “Big Sky Country” as the last place any undocumented immigrant would want to call home.

Howard is pushing a bill that calls on government agencies across the state to enforce federal immigration laws.

Howard told the Montana House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his bill, HB 50, ensures local governments will enforce immigration laws and not turn a blind eye to undocumented immigrants.

Howard said that some cities in other parts of the United States barred their police officers and other public agency workers from inquiring about immigration status. Montana, he told the committee, had to make sure it protected itself against that ever happening within its borders.

His measure, he said, would send a message a message to undocumented immigrants that they are not welcome in Montana. “It creates a defense in wonderful Montana where they won’t come here … all this does is to protect Montanans,” he told the committee. His office did not return various attempts for comment from Fox News Latino.

Montana’s small foreign-born population is mainly Latinos, though many Canadians have settled there too. The Latino population is about 28,565, or 3 percent of the total state population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Howard’s move runs counter to trends across the nation that have seen a softening by Republicans on illegal immigration, as well as less clamor at the state level to pass immigration laws.

In 2011, 30 state legislatures introduced more than 50 bills similar to that of Arizona, which, among other things, calls on police to check the immigration status of a person they have stopped for another reason and whom they suspect of being in the country unlawfully. 

But in 2012, after court challenges blocked parts of many such laws, and as public support for these measures waned, only five states – Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island and West Virginia – considered immigration bills.  None were enacted, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.

On the political front in recent years, many GOP leaders adopted a hard-line position on illegal immigration that was similar to the one embraced by Howard’s in Montana. But after that approach – which dominated much of the Republican primary and debates – was blamed as a key reason for many Latinos walking away from the GOP, the party has softened its tone.

Many Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, have pledged to soften their positions since the Nov. 6 election, in which the vast majority (71 percent) of Latino voters chose President Obama over the GOP challenger, Mitt Romney.
Echoing many other Republicans, Boehner said he would consider proposals for comprehensive immigration reform, which would include tightened enforcement as well as a pathway to legalization for certain undocumented immigrants.

Some Republican leaders expressed dismay over Howard’s proposal.
“It’s amazing that after everything we went through, after our terrible performance with Latino voters in the election, that you would still have some Republicans who would be willing to present this type of legislation,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a Washington, D.C.-based group.

“If it passes, it will not help the Republican Party.”
“Republicans who are pro-immigrant have to come forward and condemn those laws,” said Aguilar, a former Homeland Security Department official in the George W. Bush administration. “What killed us before was that Republicans who were pro-immigrant remained silent.”

Proponents of strict immigration measures praised Howard’s proposal.  “Rep. Howard’s bill ensures common sense state-federal enforcement practices for those of us who believe in the rule of law and the restoration of an immigration law that works,” said Dan Stein, director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, based in Washington D.C. “Americans are tired of paying for the same old political games designed to reward, promote and encourage illegal immigration. We applaud his efforts.”

Montana has taken on illegal immigration before; in November, voters approved a measure requiring proof of legal U.S. residency in order to receive public services. A measure similar to HB 50 cleared the state legislature two years ago, but former Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed it, calling it unnecessary in Montana.

Immigration advocacy groups in Montana say they are worried about Howard’s latest proposal, given the approval that voters gave to the referendum measure in November.  “Montana does not have an immigration problem,” said Shahid Haque-Hausrath, executive director of the Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance. “Montana is one of the states with the least number of immigrants – documented or undocumented.”

SOURCE