The litany of failures for the immigration system in the United Kingdom continues to defy imagination. This New Labour government allows rapists, paedophiles and violent criminals from all corners of the globe to stay in Britain, live off the welfare state, escape from prison and commit crimes at the expense of the law abiding public. Now they are giving them passports.
THE Home Office was under more fire yesterday after it was revealed jailed foreigners are being given British passports after release.
Officials confirmed convicted criminals from overseas were granted British citizenship if they stay out of trouble for a period after prison.
The length of the “clear” period depends on their sentence.
Yet the Government has promised to deport overseas convicts in an immigration crackdown.
It is clear that Britain cannot be trusted to run its citizenship programmes in an efficient or secure manner. Therefore, the United States should remove Britain from its Visa Waiver program without further ado. That would concentrate minds at the Home Office.
But Philip,
One’s not elligible as an individual for the VWP if one has a criminal record. Regardless of the source of one’s citizenship.
Guy,
True, but this was quoting another egregious example of a system that is not managed “in an efficient or secure manner”. I note from the NO2ID email this week that the Department for Work and Pensions was colluding in the manufacture of fake IDs. These could be used to obtain UK passports without revealing a criminal record.
The main point stands: UK passports can no longer be trusted and the US/other countries should impose visa restrictions in order to protect themselves.
Of course, I would fully support the development of private sector accreditation/identity systems removing the involvement of states in this field.
I doubt that the pugilistic Reid and his Home Office would care too much about British tourists going to the USA, unless those tourists are convicted foreign criminals finally leaving these shores. The Foreign Office, on the other hand, might well care about Britain’s overseas standing, should its closest ally remove the VWP privilege. Perhaps what would seriously hurt Blair and his cronies far more is the United States saying that only British nationals who have held UK nationality for 10 or more years (i.e. prior to Labour gainign power) can come to the USA on the VWP.
Personally I should think that the bureaucrats at the the Home Office are still reeling from the accusations by Reid of their dysfunctionality and their being ‘not fit for purpose’. This coupled with the intended IPPR report, to be published soon, which apparently argues somewhat for the end to ministerial departmental responsibility and would presumably place the blame for such mishaps as we have seen recently fair and square upon the shoulders of those senior civil servants who have resisted politicisation by the Labour Party.
A few weeks ago, when the rotten matter of foreign criminals not being deported upon release first came to light, Verity and I stated that this was a deliberate policy, implemented by those who knew full well what they were doing and with evil intentions. Others argued that it was more a case of a poorly run bureacracy. Given the almost daily round of revelations of just what is happening in the name of criminal justice in Great Britain since then, does anyone still subscribe to the cock up over the conspiracy theory?
Pete_London, quite right. Yet more revelations today with the disclosure that possibly 500 or so foreigners held in secure mental facilities have been “accidentally” released without being tracked. I am definitely starting to get the impression that the Home Office is lining these revelations up on an almost daily basis now.
I can see that by releasing criminals, failing to account for illegal immigrants and freeing the insane help to contribute to a state of societal despair which could be used by a wicked govenrment as an excuse to impose it’s illiberal will by force upon a bruised and battered population. If it is indeed a deliberate policy it is the only one that this government has pursued with any success. I for one doubt that they have the skills even to manage such an act of betrayal so thoroughly even if they wanted to, which I’m sure they do.
Still looks like a cock-up to me. A right mighty one, though.
Though I don’t want to seem as if I’m somehow vindicating teh home office, I feel I must poijt out that a great deal of our immigraiton problems are caused by our membership of the EU, which controls immigration policy these days. Prior to the various directives that shattered it, our immigration policy was simple: keep them out unless they have a very good reason. Great britain’s natural borders allowed immigration checks at the border in a small number of well defined and easilly monitored locations. The rest of continental europe, with its large, porous land borders, had to rely on internal checks as border control was effectively useless. We’re not forced to make our borders as porous as the rest of the EU, but we don’t have any internal checking to make up for it, whcih is why Blair and co are so desperate to bring in the ID card. In short, we’re fucked, and as a consequence everyone we’re associated with is equally fucked.
Now, I’m starting to agree. The visa waiver program is becoming very dangerous with the current political situation in this country and it’s time our government were given a few whacks to the head with a clue stick; they need it for pretending that they can actually do anything about the problem rather than admitting that they no longer have control over it, which is worse than being incompetent.
How would the US be better able to stop undesirables entering the country by using a visa program?
The point of the VWP program is to allow pretty much free entry for citizens of those countries which have a record of going home when they are supposed to. The rationale underlying it is economic. This is why a country like Uruguay has drifted in and out of the program in tune with its economic fortunes.
I have a strange suspicion that if the actual rules regarding countries being eligible for it were enforced (extremely low rejection rates for non-immigrants), about six or so countries would be on it: Ireland, Iceland, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, maybe a few others.
That said though, I like being able to travel to many places visa-free, and I have a feeling that scrapping or kicking lots of countries off it would bring reciprocal restrictions for Americans traveling abroad.
is it easier to enter the USA when one’s country is in the Visa Waiver Program?
Like f**k it is!!
My wife and I cross the land border at McAllen, Texas (from Mexico) on a regular basis. She has no problems, shows her BCC (Border Crossing Card) to the DHS goons, yaks to them in Spanish and is waved through with smiles – no passport needed.
I show my UK passport and get immediate scowls, official forms with ‘OTM’ scrawled large across them (it means ‘Other Than Mexican’, apparently), demands to show the vehicles registration papers, searching questions about the nature of my visit to the USA (and why so soon asfter the last one?) and I am eventually directed to the DHS Immigration office, there to complete form I-94 (Entry Permit for citizens of Visa Waiver countries) and pay US$6 – a twenty minute process.
I have to do thisd EVERY time I enter the US – even though an I94 is supposedly valid for 3 months!!
WTF??
Well this is what happens when you have libertarian open borders, foreign criminals enter the country, steal from the young men, rape the young women, beat up and rob the elderly, and shoot the Police women.
The immigration service looses control because it can’t cope with the numbers.
Meanwhile Brits are not allowed to defend themselves.
Remind me again why libertarian politics is a bit of a hard sell ?
I support knocking all of Europe out of the VWP, because Europe has a serious problem with regards to penentration by jihadists and their propagandists.
This New Labour government allows rapists, paedophiles and violent criminals from all corners of the globe to stay in Britain, live off the welfare state, escape from prison and commit crimes at the expense of the law abiding public…
And? I’d have thought this is the one thing New Labour does that this site would agree with. Dave is right.
Though I don’t want to seem as if I’m somehow vindicating teh home office, I feel I must poijt out that a great deal of our immigraiton problems are caused by our membership of the EU, which controls immigration policy these days.
Oh no they’re not. Britain has specifically opted out of the Schengen accords in order to maintain the fatuous nuisance of bullying immigration and customs officials at its borders with the EU – that this is of no value is no fault of the EU. Nor is any failure of the Home Office to carry out its own policies.
Unless you believe that the capacity for other EU citizens to live and work here – the only significant way in which the EU liberalises our immigration policy – is a problem, then the EU is not relevant to immigration policy, if you think it ought to be ‘tighter’, to “keep them out”. There are lots of things wrong with the EU but it really isn’t responsible for all the world’s problems.
….
The other thing I’m not understanding about this discussion is why all the suspicion aimed specifically at foreigners. Unless there’s an assumption on all your parts that foreigners are inherently vicious, which I do not share.
Britain (and everywhere else) has plenty of native-born convicts. If the US were to follow Philip’s advice and cancel the VWP until Britain denies passports to foreign-born convicts, then logically it should also cancel the VWP until passports are denied to all convicts whatsoever. Given the way the US already dictates domestic policies accross the world, I wouldn’t go around encouraging this sort of thing if I were you.
There’s a further prejudicial assumption here: convict = criminal. If you operate on the assumption that having served a sentence a convict can never be permitted to live as others or treated as innocent until proven guilty again, then you undermine all the assumptions of a free society that crime is a choice, and create the conditions for locking people into criminal conduct because they have less to lose. This seems particularly problematic for those who purport to believe that the state is neither inerrrant nor always right in what it chooses to control and punish.
Nor am I happy with the idea that government should be entitled to prevent its residents leaving the country: a passport is part of the government’s duty to assist its citizens abroad – one of the few things government is good for. It is not, and should not be, a permit to travel.
Guy Herbert, as usual, talks complete sense.
In addition, the remark by Dave about libertarian open borders is disingenuous. Libertarian policies do not work in isolation from each other. One cannot have completely open borders if one is still operating a welfare state that rewards immigrants who are attracted by freebies.
I’d remind you that it wasn’t London that got hit by 2 hijacked jets.
Dave:
And therefore I assume you claiming the welfare state which attracts these non-productive people is something supported by ‘libertarians’? And are you saying the handgun bans (brought in by the TORY party and then extended by Labour) which prevent people owning weapons suitable to defend themselves with is something supported by ‘libertarians’? You, sir, clearly do not know what you are talking about.
Cuthbertson:
Then you are, like Dave, an idiot.
I enter the US every 4-6 weeks on the VWP, always before my last one expired. However, I will, of course, have had to surrender the waiver, have my fingerprints and photo taken on exit and then, naturally, when I come back in, depending on the airport/border – I have a 1 – 5 minute “discussion” with the officer.
Always charming (not) and then I give my fingerprints and photo again.
Besides, over the next year or so, the VWP is going to effectively stop in it’s current form as the Biometric requirements get tightened.
I’m going to be getting an L or J visa in the autumn, but otherwise it would be seriously making me think about the travel I do.
The problem with ignoring a criminal record, especially of violent crime, is that it constitutes the one best indication that a particular person will commit a crime in the future. It’s all very nice to say, “forgive and forget”. But it doesn’t work in the real world. The only legitimate job a government has is to protect its citizens from physical violence. I think most libertarians would not want any government to stop taking into account past criminal behavior. I know objectivists wouldn’t.
Well this is what happens when you have libertarian open borders, foreign criminals enter the country, steal from the young men, rape the young women, beat up and rob the elderly, and shoot the Police women.
Nice idea, except that while there is a tiny minority of immigrants who do that, the vast majority, both legal and illegal are in the UK to work and add to the economy. Which is, more or less the point and why borders should be generally open in the first place.
The problem with ignoring a criminal record, especially of violent crime, is that it constitutes the one best indication that a particular person will commit a crime in the future.
The problem with taking it into account is you can end up with sloppy police and judicial processes. Any conviction and charge has to stand on its own merits and not on the basis of, “well, he was a villan guv’nor.”
It should certainly be a part of the sentancing process and most certainly a consideration in any parole decision.
Daveon, you seem to suggest a choice between open borders or 100% closed borders, its a false choice. I have never said all immigration is bad, and ofcourse I support as much freedom of movement as possible, which excludes enemies of the state like Islamonazis and all known criminals (meaning serious criminals like murderers, rapists, muggers).
The reason nation states came into existance is for common security, it should be the very first duty of our leaders. I want a controlled immigration system that keeps the criminals out but lets the good people in.
My aunt has lived in Britain since around about 18 years old, she is now about 60-ish, originally from Ireland, she wanted a passport a few years ago (4-5) but the British system was so awkward about it she had to get an Irish passport instead, even though she has lived in Britain for longer, has been married to an English man for a very long time and has had 2 English children.
This is what is going on, the criminal nuts are given passports because political correctness makes it harder to question them, while the good people are being hassled.
That is why we need a carefully controlled system and not the chaos that is going on at the moment.
Perry, I know you only want open borders in combination with other policy changes (cause you told me last time) but you are not the only libertarian and there are plenty of folks out there who think government has no right to control the borders of its nation under any circumstance other than a full on War.
And there are some who see ‘open borders’ as a way of destroying the welfare state. I agree with the aim but not the method as we could well end up with something worse!
–
Perry, is your ideal world basically something very much like the wild-west?
“The other thing I’m not understanding about this discussion is why all the suspicion aimed specifically at foreigners. Unless there’s an assumption on all your parts that foreigners are inherently vicious, which I do not share.”
15% of the prisoners in British jails are not British citizens.
15% of the people in Britain are not foreigners, so yes there is a higher crime rate for foreigners.
And considering it would be harder to catch illegals the true rate its probably higher!
But besides that, I don’t think the debate is only aimed at foreigners, the sentences for serious crimes in this country is far too low. Although it is particularly abhorant to be attacked by foreigners because the government is supposed to be protecting us that is what they are paid to do, they are the gatekeepers, if we get attacked by someone already within this country sure we can’t blame the gatekeeper, but if the gatekeeper lets madmen in we can blame them.
Most of the foreigners in prison in Britain are drug mules who are not normally resident here. Therefore using a comparison between the %age of foreign born people in the prison population and the %age of foreign born people in the general population to infer something about the relative criminality of foreigners is logically wrong.
I tried to emigrate to Britain, but couldn’t get citizenship, dual citizenship, or even a work permit. My parents were born in Britain, almost my entire extended family live there, I had the Queen on my passport (Canadian), I had an education and skills and a work history with accomplishments and a good work ethic and no criminal record, and I was a hottie…
Britain doesn’t want “good” immigrants like me, it permits in whomever steals in on a lorry through the Chunnel.
So…you can have them.
I’m an American now and much the happier for it. When I told British family/friends I was trying to emigrate, their inevitable response was, “Why on earth would you want to do that?” It mystified me at the time but I know better now.
Liz,
I’m actually really surprised to read that. My wife got Indefinate Leave to remain over 10 years ago from SA based on education, I have American friends who are now resident in the US and found it easy and from my wife’s MBA there are several from Singapore who got a visa even though they had no work.
Do you have British grandparents? If so, did you try for an Ancestoral visa which is what most Australians and South Africans use – they are valid for 4 years and then you apply for Indefinate Leave to remain, followed by a passport application.
Having been through it with my wife and some friends I know it is a long winded process but a hell of a lot easier than the process I am currently in to move to the US.
yeah liz, thats whats going on. And the thing is its not incompetence or an accidence, its intentional.
“‘Too white’ towns are labelled unhealthy, by one of the government’s senior race relations advisers”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2147856,00.html
Who in their right senses would go to the US now, especially on their own volition? “The land of the free…” sorry, what was the last part? Ask yourselves, how many times have been embarrassed at US Immigration. You remove your shoes and that slight blemish in your sock has become a huge hole. Then they tell you your suspenders are setting off their metal detector. “Thought that was your department, love.” When that pompous US judge pointed to the US flag and told Richard Reid that compared to that he was nothing, you have to wonder if those passing through US Immigration would totally agree. Hot Foot Richard: The man responsible for making millions of passengers remove their footwear.
“You will go to prison for 80 years.” “Hey Judge, I can’t serve all that time.” “Well just do the best you can, boy.” Hell, he’d get less time for killing a judge. Suppose that figures.
Never mind removing the UK from the visa waiver because of the EU legislation that deflects UK immigration. Remove them from the Visa Waiver because of the massive amounts of arrests in the UK. Correct me if I am wrong but if you have been arrested cant travel visa free. A lot of people have been arrested in the UK. We are talking easily 15 million people at any point in their lives. If not 20 million. Hell 2000 arrested in Germany during the world cup. It will be by the time is it over.
That one in 3 of the population. Say native born brits could be 3 in 5 couldnt we