Posted on 01/12/2008 6:53:14 PM PST by Stoat
Caught: Two Kurdish immigrants trying to enter Britain hidden in a lorry
Prison vans are to cruise the streets of Britain searching for illegal - immigrants.
The "mobile detention centres" will aim to catch recently arrived foreigners as they emerge from peoplesmuggling lorries.
Immigration officers will hold the suspects inside the vans until background checks are performed.
If they are found to be here illegally, they will be taken by police to a major detention centre in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, before being repatriated.
The sheer number of bogus arrivals has meant police have been too busy to do the job.
The first vans are due to be launched in Northamptonshire following a successful try-out in ports along the South Coast.
The vehicles were ordered by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne after the Government was embarrassed by two incidents last September.
Police caught 16 illegal Iraqi immigrants leaving a lorry in Flore, Northamptonshire, but, instead of alerting the authorities, told them to travel almost 100 miles to a detention centre in Croydon and sign on as asylum-seekers.
The previous week, five African men had been found in a lorry in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire.
On that occasion, the police actually gave them a lift to a railway station before asking them to catch a train to Croydon.
Northampton North MP Sally Keeble, who had raised the incidents with Mr Byrne, said: "They were stupid situations - no one would expect desperate people to travel halfway across the country to hand themselves in.
"These vans are a good idea and will help to take the pressure off local police and services."
New Government figures reveal that the number of illegal stowaways has more than doubled in just three years. In 2003, the number of people found entering the country clandestinely was 3,127. By 2006, it was 7,552.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: "We will need to see whether this measure changes much in practice or whether it is another gimmick."
But last night, questions were being asked as to how staff at the Border & Immigration Agency would find the time to roam the streets in prison vans.
A leaked secret Government memo last week revealed that immigration officers had been ordered to stop deporting foreign students who overstay their visas, suggesting that they were too busy to do so.
And last month, a leaked document from the Prison Service revealed that immigration bosses had "no interest" in deporting foreign prisoners who had served less than a year behind bars.
The first candidate that comes out for this here will be the next president of the United States.
Such a candidate would have me out doorbelling for him in a heartbeat.
Make sure you press 1 for English.
Great idea! and I love that you know what a stoat is!
LOVE THIS!!!!
Make sure you press 1 for English.
I appreciate that, thank you. With the addition of various Arabic and Chinese dialect options the phone menu there has become a bit confusing......
I try, but I can't help the fact that I'm just a scruffy guy with an 'occasional' hairball and flea problem....
Not likely to be seen in American cities anytime soon, unfortunately.
I would love to do it on my own, but that little worry about being arrested for kidnapping keeps giving me pause.
What a concept!!!
Enforce THE LAW.
Hey Washington elites: ¿¿¿COMPRENDE???
I would be delighted to drive the van if they need extra help, but I haven't exactly heard our US authorities asking......
“Illegal immigrants will be rounded-up by roaming prison vans”
Well, sounds like a bit of a change from what I heard of in the UK
a couple of years ago.
Al Rantel of KABC Radio in Los Angeles would have an hour of simulcast
radio with a radio host from the UK once a week.
Rantel mentioned our idiotic policy of often giving a “summons”
to illegals caught in the USA telling them to appear for a hearing
about their immigration status. Basically it’s a moronic “catch
and release” program. And of course, hardly any of these crimaliens
appear for their hearing.
The radio host in the UK said “We can top that. Our police write the
illegal a summons for a hearing. And then give them a voucher to
pay their way to the hearing via bus/rail.”
Sounds like the UK has realized most illegals just aren’t going to
show up for their deportation.
Even if you pay their way to the hearing!
I pray this sort of sanity catches on here in the USA!
How barbaric! Don’t they know that Great Britain was built on immigration? The Angles and the Saxons were immigrants.
Will the MSM carry the stories of the prison vans attacked and burned?
When will IED’s start being used in Briton?
Maybe, if they go home, we’ll call it even.....???
they’ve had enough...
And how come WE AMERICANS didnt think of this before?
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