UK’s ‘Broken’ Immigration System – how could we fix it ?

I first published this blog in November 2022 at a time when we were nearing the 50,000 mark for small-boat illegal channel migrants arriving in UK. Although many of the arguments are still valid, I've revised the content to reflect the current change in 'mood music' with the EU and the more robust home office stance announced this week, in the hope that some of the suggestions may prove useful in the negotiations.

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This is a particularly controversial topic, and has been foremost in our minds in UK since Putin’s Ukraine invasion and its migratory aftermath. 

There are no hard and fast solutions to what is now effectively a global problem, but I'll attempt to provide some suggestions, and will focus primarily on our own issues with controlling illegal migration to the UK.

The many crises and disasters occurring in other parts of the world are continuing to drive further migration ‘waves’ and will continue to do so over the coming years as resources become exhausted and our species' population continues to increase unabated. Last autumn our border force defences on UK's southern coast were nearing the point of being overwhelmed by the 'invasion' of illegal migrants from France. Effective action to stem the tide must be taken soon to protect our territorial integrity and local authorities' sheer ability to cope, in the face of a predicted 80,000+ arrivals in 2024.

Immigration was one of the main causes of our exit from the EU, and the problem of what to do about it still plagues us as a nation. So far the dilemma shows no signs of resolving itself under the current regime. We need to address the reasons for this, and make the necessary changes, without delay. 

The asylum system in particular is clearly 'broken' and needs radical reform if we are to control our borders effectively.

What needs to be done ?

Moral and legal considerations

First, let’s compare the morality of asylum vs economic migration – and assess the limits to a country’s obligations under international law.

It goes without saying that, as a relatively wealthy nation, we should continue to provide succour to anyone who is genuinely persecuted by others in the region in which they live, and who asks us for help. International law also requires that anyone submitting a legitimate claim for asylum should have their case considered promptly. This is an important consideration, and as we will see later, we are not achieving it under the current system. 

Asylum, however, is not an absolute right – all countries have the right to reject a claim provided they are able to justify their decision. Economic migration is very much a discretionary facility, and is the prerogative of the receiving country. In practice, it should always place the interests of the indigenous population first.

In an ideal world, we in the UK would continue to welcome all those who would like to join us. 

However, we live on an already overcrowded planet with near-exponential and effectively uncontrolled population growth, particularly in some of the more economically-challenged countries. This small island kingdom of ours is already seriously overpopulated, and becoming more so by the day. The UK is also a ‘magnet’ for those from less-favoured parts of the world wishing to achieve a better life for themselves and their offspring. 

There are many reasons for our popularity as a destination, including our language, English, being the de facto world language; our welcoming stance to all-comers over many years has certainly given us form as a 'soft touch' when it comes to those seeking a better life. Indeed, it could be argued that we are our own worst enemies on this account, and our readiness to accept refugees in the past is one of the main causes of our current immigration woes. 

Despite our economic problems, many in the 3rd world still see us as an 'Eldorado' which they must reach at all costs - we must find ways of convincing them it isn't - and soon.

We should always remember that we are not obliged in any way to accept all-comers - we would quickly be swamped if we did. 

Economic Migration 

This involves moving to a new country on the grounds that life is better there, enabling the individual to make more money to improve their own standard of living. In many cases one of the prime motives is to send funds ‘home’ to their extended family, thus effectively transferring wealth out of the UK and into the home nation. This should only be allowed if we have an acute need for the skills of that particular applicant – just having friends or relatives already in the UK is not a valid reason to be allowed entry - and never has been.

Increasing immigration quotas to fill posts in occupations where there are skills shortages in the short term may sometimes be expedient,  but we should always give priority to ensuring these posts can be filled by indigenous UK workers in the medium and long term. This retains wealth (and tax revenues) within UK and helps prevent the standard of living of our existing population declining any further. The primary role of any national government is to put the UK population first...those entrusted with this responsibility who fail to fulfill their obligations in this respect are invariably punished at the ballot box.

If we have a shortage of workers in UK for a particular role, we should ensure recruiting and training for that role within UK  is fast-tracked. Failing to do so in itself creates a need for immigration workers. We also need to do more to anticipate our future needs in particular sectors more effectively, to prevent these shortages developing in the first place. This is simply not happening effectively at present, and has given rise to the dysfunctional labour market we're now experiencing (see also the recently updated blog on employment). Successive governments have therefore effectively failed to do their job in prioritising opportunities for their own population to develop the skills required to fill the gaps.

Much more use could also be made of the large 'pool' of unemployed benefit claimants to help fill the shortages. It seems absurd that we still have more than a million unfilled posts, while millions of others who could work, and indeed would like to, remain economically inactive and on benefits long-term, with adverse consequences for their health and morale. Our benefits system needs urgent reform if we are to enable those claimants of working age who want to work to do so without financial penalty, and those who don't get the encouragement and help they need to change their ways.

Asylum

A claim for asylum by an individual is effectively a cry for help to another nation to remove them from harm that would befall them in their own home country. To be valid, it requires the asylum seeker to prove that they would be in immediate danger if they were returned there. 

Genuine asylum claims need to be judged by different criteria to requests from economic  migrants, and are more difficult to assess, since they revolve around the need to prove the threat to personal safety. As such, claims are trickier and more time-consuming to deal with, as we see from the immense backlog currently awaiting processing by the Home Office. The principal cause of this backlog is that most illegal economic migrants falsely claim asylum, thus forcing the application of a time-consuming filtering process on the part of a hard-pressed Home Office to weed out those few claims that are really genuine, and thus delaying their rightful claims.

There is, however, an important legal principle here which has been under-used in the past, and should be more rigorously applied, to enable us to speed-up the process of assessment: 

An asylum claim is only justified if the applicant has come directly from a country or region designated as ‘unsafe’. 

This is because once in a 'safe' country, the claimant is just that, and can no longer claim to be in personal danger.

A corollary of this principle is that asylum seekers are expected to settle in the first country they reach that is deemed safe (this principle is already enshrined in EU law, and is generally agreed internationally). 

If the principle were applied correctly by the Home Office to those crossing the channel to enter UK illegally from France, they would all be subject to automatic asylum refusal, since France itself is deemed to be a ‘safe’ country. Claimants travelling to France over land routes in the hope of entering Britain in this way (i.e. the vast majority of them) would also have had ample opportunity to register their claims in any of the other safe countries along their route.

Personal preference of the claimant for a 'first choice' destination cannot be allowed to override this important principle. The fact that people-smugglers actively encourage their 'clients' not to register with EU authorities on entry to the EU, and to destroy all personal documentation before embarking on their perilous cross-channel journey is no coincidence - it frustrates efforts of the UK authorities to process claims quickly and also enables young adults to claim falsely that they are unaccompanied children, thus gaining special immigration  status.

If all such illegal migrants to UK were greeted with the prospect of incarceration pending automatic deportation to their point of origin, or to a 3rd country deemed 'safe', with legal penalties when they got there, they would quickly seek other 'venues'....see below for a discussion on how this might be achieved.

There is general agreement among a majority of the UK population and the political parties that immigration has to be much more strictly controlled in future – and this includes asylum seekers as well as economic migrants. The Brexit referendum was the first 'salvo' from the UK electorate intended to convince government that it needs to act on this quickly, and it won’t be the last. 

The 2024 election in particular was in part a test of whether the Tories had made sufficient progress in this area….

Current efforts by our Border Force to regulate inflow, and in particular to stem the increasing tide of cross-channel illegal movements, are patchy at best, and downright ineffectual at worst. We were promised a significant reduction in overall immigration levels post-Brexit, once the influx of EU citizens mandated by the free movement principle under EU law was controlled.

However, far from Brexit stemming the tide, our borders have remained woefully ‘leaky’, and immigration has increased significantly as a result, with the majority of refugees and economic migrants now coming in from non-EU countries and the 3^rd world, many of them illegally. And that’s not even taking into account the recent influx from much closer to  home of many thousands of Ukrainians seeking asylum (quite legitimately of course in their case) as a result of Putin’s invasion.

Clearly we need to take more decisive action to remedy the situation. In particular, illegal channel crossings are an active threat to our way of life. They pose a direct problem in challenging our local councils’ ability to cope with the massive influx of refugees requiring homes, jobs, medical care, etc., etc. This is not just the areas close to our south-eastern ports - many of our hotels in the provinces are being co-opted by government to house the channel influx, causing much concern and protests from local residents. They also represent a significant extra  financial burden on all of us - estimates of what it costs to support a single asylum seeker waiting for several years on benefits while their claim is processed vary, but most generally exceed £100k. Large families are even more expensive to maintain and generally require long-term hotel accommodation to satisfy their needs. The proposal to house migrants in floating barges is yet another 'gimmick' which will not provide secure detention and will in any case be only a 'drop in the ocean' in dealing with the estimated 50,000 channel migrants already awaiting processing.

Neither is life particularly pleasant for the asylum seekers themselves. The Manston Centre's overcrowding problems last year showed that the system was literally overwhelmed by the 50,000+ illegals who reaching our shores in 2022, and co-opted hotel accommodation without the possibility of a job or even life 'on the streets' is unlikely to be particularly fulfilling. The current projections of 80,000+ in 2023 only serve to emphasise the need for action.

There is also of course the immediate threat to the lives of the would-be immigrants setting out from France. The perilous nature of a journey across the busiest shipping lane in the world in a small overloaded boats cannot be emphasised enough – it is nothing short of miraculous that more have not died in the attempt so far.

Stemming the Cross-channel tide

How could we reduce the flow of channel migrants, and what additional measures should be taken ?

The key objective here is to break the people smugglers’ business model….

Migrants pay large sums to these despicable individuals in order to risk their lives getting to Britain, and without them and their international organisations, the journey would simply not be feasible. The current going rate for a 'seat' on one of their boats being offered by the Albanian people-smuggling 'mafia'  is ca £4000, with up to 60 people regularly being crammed into each dinghy during the summer months (i.e. a potential profit of £240,000 per boatload). 

So lucrative is this trade that Albanian organised crime introduced a policy of actively ensnaring and then trafficking young Albanian workers and subjecting them to appalling conditions and effective 'enslavement' once in UK. This is simply in order to 'tap into' the goldmine that is 'immigration fever', and must be stopped, on humanitarian grounds if nothing else.

As long as this trade in human suffering remains ‘big business’, yielding as it does huge profits for the criminal gangs who control it, it will continue. The only way to stop it is to make the journey so hazardous that no would-be immigrant in their right mind would attempt it, and ensure that those who do succeed are never allowed to settle here. 

Although our new government seems to have set its sights on pursuing the people smugglers themselves, this is less likely to achieve results in the immediate term, since the 'small-fry' operating on the ground are easily replaceable. The real 'kingpins' running the operation are usually clever and resourceful enough to avoid direct involvement, and can easily afford to hide behind expensive legal assistance if they do come to the attention of the authorities. Only a really effective international law-enforcement collaboration with the authorities in source countries, and a sharp collaborative crackdown by EU law enforcement across the board will make any impression on those at the top of the tree. 

One hopeful sign that this might eventually happen was the Albanian PMs recent protest that it's not Albania's fault per se. He obviously feels aggrieved enough to take a stand so may perhaps be more ready to collaborate in a crackdown. 

The real problem is that the people-smuggling organised crime network is truly international, and one imprisoned 'kingpin' will quickly be replaced by another, so long as there are huge profits to be made. Thus we need to focus more on active deterrence in situ - i.e. making sure that anyone who actually makes it across the channel illegally will be deported promptly and never be allowed to settle in UK. 

The French authorities, despite close liaison with UK border force (and not insignificant extra funding from UK) have so far failed to make much impression on the numbers taking to the boats. Indeed, it might appear that there is little real incentive for them to do so - the principle of ‘better out than in’ is often applied in the hope of reducing the size of immigrant settlements in northern France.

However, this highlights a false assumption on the part of our immediate neighbours, since if the incentive to cross to UK were removed, so too would be the widespread problems and disruption (not least to the tourist trade !) wrought by the presence of large numbers of migrants in and around northern French coastal cities. I’ve no doubt that a candid chat with the mayor of Calais, or indeed any of the other local mayors in the region, would confirm the authenticity of this view, and the desire on their part to change things.

The most effective way to stop the flow into the UK is at source, i.e. at the channel embarkation beaches. To do this, we have to provide much more of a disincentive for migrants to take to the boats in the first place.

One problem that isn't helping is that currently, particularly during the summer months, an armada of UK-based boats, including Border Force patrols, RNLI vessels and until recently the Royal Navy, patrol the Channel close to French territorial waters, and regularly pick up the 'survivors' of any small boats that come their way. This amounts effectively to a free ‘rescue taxi' service to UK for any migrants prepared to risk a short 3 mile journey to international waters from the French embarkation beaches to reach them. This must stop, and our own government already has the power to make it do so.

If UK patrol vessels were required to focus their efforts on guarding our own immediate territorial waters (which is, after all, their primary role), and were not allowed to venture as far  across the channel as they do now, this would ensure our immediate borders were more efficiently patrolled. More importantly, it would also present the migrants with a minimum of 18 miles of open water to traverse, with the additional risk of being run down by shipping en route. This should focus minds wonderfully, and I suspect would do much to deter migrants towards more legal (and safer !) ways of seeking asylum in UK. It would also cripple the smugglers’ business model in the process. In these days of sophisticated monitoring technology, it should be perfectly possible for the UK authorities to keep a close eye on channel traffic as a whole without actually being there. Neither should there be any need for the more controversial push-back technique that has been proposed for our patrol vessels on the French side - just leave the boats to their own devices until they actually reach UK territorial waters.

Although reduction in rescue support from the UK authorities might result in some additional lives being lost in the early stages, it would probably save a lot more in the long run – we therefore need to grasp the nettle here and implement a more 'hands off' policy when it comes to providing a migrant 'taxi service'. Let’s hope our new PM and the new Home Secretary both have the courage to act on Boris's original promises of action in 2019….

It's also essential that the French also take on more of the responsibility for stemming the tide. 

Any small boats they allow to leave the French coast should be seen as still effectively under French protection, at the very least until they reach mid-channel. Under accepted maritime law, all vessels in the vicinity are required to assist other vessels who ask for help, not just those from the English side, and French border force vessels should be much more actively patrolling their side of the channel close to the 'immigration beaches' to turn back any small boats away from the dangers of the mid-channel shipping lanes. Despite French protestations that there is too large an area to cover for them to patrol effectively, the number of embarkation points must be effectively already limited for small boats at least, given that the crossing distance widens rapidly in either direction along the coast from Calais. These beaches should be the main focus of their efforts. From a legal point of view, They would not be contravening international law, given the boats would still be in French territorial waters, and all those using them are in the process of committing a criminal act by wilfully 'going equipped' to enter the UK illegally.

The other key problem that has prevented a lasting solution so far is the absence of a returns agreement. 

Macron's steadfast refusal thus far to enter into such an agreement with the UK is a major issue in that it prevents prompt deportation back to the point of origin in France. Apart from encouraging dangerous embarkations to continue from his coast, by refusing this, Macron is doing a dis-service to his own northern coastal cities, who are regularly inundated by the waves of migrants heading for the channel coast. 

He might do well to consider this when assessing his, and his party's, chances at the next election. One of our recent ex-PM's remarks in 2002 as Foreign Secretary questioning whether Macron was actually a 'friend' of the UK, although not exactly a diplomatic 'tour de force', were certainly to the point. The improvement in 'mood music' as a result of the recent summit of the new european 'club' may help achieve a better degree of cooperation, but is unlikely to persuade Macron to accept cross-channel immediate returnees back into France. 

Why is Macron so adamant in refusing this ? Part of his reluctance may well be that the EU believe that UK isn't taking its fair share of the EU's refugee immigrant total, and he, as an ardent supporter of the EU feels he has to endorse this. France itself had almost 3 times the number of asylum applications as did the UK in 2022, despite the fact that UK appears to be the destination of choice. 

The fact that many of the refugees still in Northern France admit openly that they would never contemplate settling in France instead of UK, suggests that Macron might be better off with a returns agreement to complement an outright UK lifetime ban on asylum claims by illegals. 

This would remove any incentive for them to come to France in the first place, thereby reducing the policing and accommodation requirements and possibly even reducing the number of asylum claims overall. It would also help remove the drive for them to congregate in the Calais area, thereby helping restore the ailing channel coast tourist trade. The main problem Macron has, though, is that immediate return of all migrants to France would cause a build-up of displaced people in northern France, with effectively nowhere to go, thus creating an immense headache for the French authorities, and the potential for civil disorder on a significant scale. It is only by reducing the flow into France that this could be prevented. As we have seen over recent years, the waves of immigrants flowing into the EU from Greece, Italy and Spain in response to the various 'displacement events' have been very difficult to stop due to the sheer extent of the southern EU border, and the Schengen agreement which allows free cross-frontier movement throughout the EU. It's unlikely that this problem will be resolved as long as the pressures to migrate remain high.

Our current PM still has a 'mountain to climb' there, I think, although the 'era of cooperation' that seems to have dawned, now that the Brexit wounds have at least partially healed, do give some cause for hope, and the more extensive cross-channel collaboration just agreed may help.

Dealing with migrants who arrive in UK illegally

Once the migrants are here, assessing their claims, accommodating them while they are waiting, and removing them if their claims are refused, becomes much more of a problem. And they know it.

Local authorities in Kent were stretched to breaking point for much of the summer and autumn last year trying to accommodate the 60,000 or more who crossed illegally in 2023. They are still dealing with the aftermath, and steeling themselves for the renewed onslaught once the this summer and autumn. Thus there are ample grounds for radical action. It actually got to the point last autumn where local residents in Dover were regularly finding their gardens and even their houses being invaded by young male immigrants looking for whatever they could get. This is a systemic failure on the part of law enforcement, and quite naturally breeds resentment amongst the local population.

We have already touched on the potential future costs to the exchequer and local government, which, like everything else, will continue rising due to inflation.

We should also remember that anyone who enters the UK illegally (for whatever reason) has committed a serious criminal offence under UK law, and detention should therefore be mandatory pending an assessment of any asylum claim they might make. Too many claimants are managing to go underground after arrival here and evading proper processing through lack of enough suitable detention facilities to house them. We saw the results of this last year at Manston, with some arrivals  actually being 'dumped' in central London without any means of support - or control. Much more investment is needed in suitable holding facilities for arrivals awaiting deportation.

Once again, a returns agreement with the French is of paramount importance if we are to make progress. In the absence of such an agreement, we need to seek alternative measures. Much was made last year of the 'flagship' agreement with Rwanda for mandatory resettlement of selected illegals from UK.

Although this might have seemed a ‘good idea at the time’, it was always fundamentally flawed, and therefore an obvious target for eagle-eyed human rights lawyers wishing to advance their careers by getting involved with a headline-grabbing issue. The whole thing is likely to remain mired in controversy, and inevitably died a natural death wit the recent change of government. Indeed, if anything, it caused an additional 'rush for the boats', with TikTok videos in Albanian posted by the traffickers still openly encouraging would be migrants to 'go now before you become eligible for a permanent Rwandan holiday'. (So much for the 'benefits' of social media).

Much more promising was the agreement with the Albanian authorities last year for instant repatriation for any Albanian caught entering UK illegally. This includes criminal penalties to be applied back in Albania on their return.Several hundred Albanian illegals have already been returned via this route (by contrast, none have been sent from UK to Rwanda so far)

This initiative emerged following the revelation that the large wave of migrants taking advantage of calm conditions in the channel last summer consisted largely of Albanians, most of whom were young males. Since Albania itself is deemed to be a safe country, these migrants are all by definition economic. Although it has taken some time for this agreement to actually start showing results, recent reports of deportations of illegal Albanian migrants within days of arriving in UK are encouraging. The recent crackdown on a people-smuggling ring based in Spain also indicates the authorities are cooperating successfully. 

A key point here is that any bilateral legal agreement between UK and the home country should be much more likely to resist the attentions of the human rights advocates, and thus be more effective at securing rapid removal. It is much less likely that any EU or international court could justify 'outlawing' an agreement between two independent and 'safe' sovereign states involving the enforced return of illegal immigrants to their own home country. Outlawing this would be seen as the court impinging unacceptably on the democratic rights of the respective national governments and would not be tolerated. If current ECHR and UNHCR restrictions continue to allow legal frustration of our attempts to control our own borders effectively, we should seriously consider leaving both of these Conventions. 

As an aside, it is a sad indictment of large international organisations such as this that their inflexibility in not allowing derogations where there is a genuine need actually encourages departures from membership. Our own experience with the EU membership, ending as it did with Brexit, is testament to the need for these organisations to be more adaptable to the individual needs of their members. They should take note, given the increasing unpopularity of globalisation and the threat to their own relevance that poses. 

Similar agreements between UK and other territories might well be worth considering if the Albanian agreement continues to bear fruit – many countries in Africa are a frequent source of illegal migrants, and in view of their often poor financial health, they might well be receptive to such overtures from UK. 

Part of the deterrent 'package' in any such agreement should always be the transfer of criminal liability for the UK offence of illegal entry back to the home country, such that any financial or custodial penalties would be exacted there. This will provide an additional financial incentive for the home government to participate, and should also help convince would-be migrants that their journey to UK is really not worth the risk...or the ultimate price they may pay if they fall at the final hurdle....

Last, but not least, illegal migrants should, on deportation, receive a lifetime ban from re-entering the UK by any means, and from ever becoming UK citizens. Given that this is probably the prime reason most economic migrants wish to come here, mandatory withdrawal of the opportunity should act as a major deterrent and help divert their attention elsewhere.

Human Rights Issues

Regarding the morality of opposing controls on human rights grounds, the lawyers involved should perhaps consider their own moral responsibilities more carefully. By actively preventing rapid deportation, they are encouraging more would-be migrants to make for the French coast, and thereby shoring-up the smugglers’ business model - and risking the liberty, and ultimately the lives, of those being trafficked. 

By effectively paralysing the UK Border Force's removals system via frivolous and prolonged legal action, they are also 'silting-up' the Home Office's processing system and thereby depriving genuine asylum seekers of their right to prompt assessment of their claims. This in  itself could be seen as committing an offence against the ECHR's principles, which require prompt assessment of all asylum claims.

By encouraging migration in this way, it could well be argued that the lawyers themselves also bear some of the moral responsibility for the inevitable deaths by drowning that will occur this year as the surge continues and crossings become increasingly hazardous….some food for thought on their part, perhaps, as they watch their generous legal fees arrive in their corporate accounts....

Dealing with genuine Asylum claims

As discussed previously, as a (still, believe it or not !) prosperous G7 nation, we should continue to ‘step up to the plate’ and offer a safe home to anyone in genuine need. 

Our support for our new friends from Ukraine provide a good example of how generous a people we can be in ‘going the extra mile’ for those under oppression from an invader. To this end, we need a much more streamlined and efficient way of assessing claims, so that no one is kept ‘in limbo’ for longer than is absolutely necessary. This will require much more ruthless pruning of the current claims backlog, and a stricter approach to claims which are obviously made on economic or even fraudulent grounds. It will also require rapid deportation arrangements with home and other 3rd countries, so that UK detention facilities are not overwhelmed, and our authorities need to 'grasp the nettle'.

We also need to provide additional options for legal migration routes - part of the problem is that the current lack of these is actually driving illegal immigration. Application facilities in the home countries and within the EU 'donor ' countries would also help encourage legal asylum applications and help restore our control of our borders.

All this is in the interest of genuine asylum seekers as well as the rest of us in UK. 

Final Thoughts

It is only by convincing the world that we mean business and are no longer a ‘soft touch’, or indeed some sort of mythical 'Eldorado', for anyone wishing to improve their own economic fortunes, that we will achieve the controls on our borders that are necessary to preserve our way of life in future.

We have a built-in geographical advantage in being an island nation – let’s use it to the full…

Version date: 8.4.23