Tackling Illegal Immigration Survey

Prime Minister provides tough plan for illegal immigrants and gangs

The Prime Minister made it clear that doing what is right is what is needed now: “The balancing of our duty to support people in dire need… with the responsibility to have genuine control of our borders… understandably provokes strong feelings. And so… it is my view… that the basis for any solution shouldn’t just be ‘what works’… but what is right.”

And what ‘is right’ is not cheating our system of asylum for economic gain. I know a lot of my constituents think the same, which is why I welcome the news today that after his speech to the House of Commons, the Prime Minister in collaboration with others will now:

1)    Establish a new Small Boats Operational Command, which will work hand-in-hand with our National Crime Agency. They will utilise cutting edge technology such as drones and new-age surveillance to prosecute more gangs working at the crossings and taking advantage of and killing those in desperate times.

2)    Focus on enforcement – the new command will allow immigration officers to focus solely on enforcement - increasing the capacity working on raiding illegal business premises by more than 50%

3)    In addition we will cut the cost of the current situation by moving people to less expensive accommodation and out of hotels.

4)    More caseworkers will be employed in order to speed up the rate at which immigration and asylum cases are processed, in order to deal with the backlogs.

5)    Albania will be, quite rightly, deemed a 'safe country'. A new agreement has been signed with Albania which will include border force officers being embedded at Tirana airport to stop people trying to illegally come to the UK.

Britain is quite rightly a welcoming country to those in genuine need and recently we have supported over 20,000 people who helped British Forces from Afghanistan to come to the UK as well as around 144,000 from Hong Kong and 144,000 from Ukraine as well. However, in order to be able to support those in real need, we also need to stop those who seek to abuse our immigration system and enter our country illegally bypassing normal immigration routes.

Richard Holden MP