Immigration Shambles

Nick Clegg was quite right to point out that Tory and Labour governments had made a complete shambles of the immigration service. While Mr Clegg was pointing this out during the leaders debate on April 29th my elderly sister was having a hard time with a  UK immigration  officer at Lille station.


My sister presented her  US passport  (we have dual nationality as our mother was a GI bride). The  IO  asked for evidence that she was resident in Britain. Now her passport, like mine, states that she was born in the UK but that did not satisfy jobsworth so my sister showed an NHS E111 card, her UK driving licence and her London Borough Freedom Pass all of which failed to satisfy jobsworth who claimed they could all be forgeries. The folk my sister was travelling with  suggested to jobsworth that  using that logic her estuary accent was a forgery too. The IO said she could not let my sister enter Britain. The folk she was travelling with, one a Jamaican who had passed immigration without any problem, stood by her so the IO went off to phone her supervisor. Ten minutes later the IO reluctantly stamped my sister's passport. By contrast the French  officials had been civil and saw no problem with letting a US citizen into their country. I have had similar problems with UK IOs but have always managed to charm them into letting me in.

This jobsworth is typical of an immigration system that does not work. Why pick on an elderly white lady with an East London accent who has  travelled on her US passport all her life? The IO at Lille did tell my sister that she would have to get a UK passport in future and that she would be in trouble with the Home Office if she did not do so as she would not be  allowed out of Britain on her US passport.    This is of course rubbish although since 2001 we are required  by the US state department to travel into and out of the US only using our US passports, they will not accept UK passports.  I suspect IO's motivation is driven by targets rather than common sense.

My father, head of security in the Immigration Office at the time Roy Jenkins was Home Secretary, will be turning over in his grave at this story.

When I first travelled to Europe, over 40 years ago, not only did immigration check you out customs checked you as there were limits on how much money could be taken out of the country (I seem to recall it was called exchange control and the amount of any foreign currency you purchased was entered by the bank into the back of your passport).  The Home Office and Treasury there knew who had left and with how much money. No computers in those days it was all done on index cards. You passport was stamped out and in ( as they still do in France).

Then the Thatcher administration in one of its attempts to cut government spending withdrew all exit checks. Since then the Government have no idea who has left Britain and are therefore unable to tie that information in with who has arrived. Another cut, also during Thatcher's time I believe, was to withdraw reporting at a police station. Immigrants on  visas were required to report weekly at their local police station. The information was sent, by paper, to the Home Office who entered it on your index card. If you failed to report then PC plod would pay you a visit.

Now in the age of all things digital  the government can't co-ordinate the information it has. If it could then my sister would not have been detained as a swipe  of her passport through the electronic reader would have shown she had the  right to enter.

The system does not work. I have two passports and the system certainly can't cope with that. According to the US Embassy there are 250,000 folk like me with dual citizenship in Britain. I use my UK passport at this end of the journey and my US passport at the other end. No problem then, but why should I be obliged to have two passports when there is supposed to be electronic intelligence systems that share such data between authorities.

Like many other systems operated by government today it has failed. Oh and by the way the country that generates more illegal immigrants  to Britain than any other? Its Australia. But they are  white and speak English so that's all right then.

After writing this blog a friend asked "Why has Shop UK a permanent open sign on it? " THis was my reply:
"Because of Blair and his target madness. Under Blair all government  departments became target obsessed as Blair and his cohorts lacked the confidence to trust the professionals. In the case of immigration  the targets lead officers to go for soft touch methods of meeting them. Actually chasing and deporting those who over stay became to difficult. Now Labour and Tories are in denial. They ignore the mountain of illegal immigrants (most arrived on student visas and disappeared). The result of their failure to keep a check on who is coming in and going out ( without the latter you can't know who has overstayed their time) is that criminal gangs  use illegal immigrants as slave labour on the land and in brothels. Now I don't suggest there is any connection between the criminals and politicians but it is appalling how the politicians choose to ignore what is going on. It may be because it does not fit into their target  culture."