While immigration remains the most divisive political issue in Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron on last Thursday has yet again announced plans to crack down on illegal immigration and tighten Britain's borders. New official figures showed a significant rise in the number of migrants surging to roughly 318,000 in 2014, up from 209,000 the year before, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported.
PM Cameron further announced for all banks in the UK to check their bank accounts against databases to confirm that their clients are not in UK illegally. He also announced a new immigration bill which will be the major talking point of the May 27 Queen's Speech at the House of Lords.
It will now become mandatory for landlords to check whether their tenants are in the country legally. He also announced a new mandatory licensing regime to punish unscrupulous landlords who cram houses full of illegal migrants and "deport first, appeal later" policy, which means that many immigrants may soon face deportation before being able to appeal against it.
Ahead of the Queen’s speech which is expected to announce government’s plans to introduce a new immigration bill, director of Migrants Rights Network, Don Flynn said, “Remarkably the government is promising a new Immigration Act, whilst the ink still dries on its 2014 one, which isn’t even fully implemented yet.
“With this new piece of legislation the government is revealing a gap in the understanding of what is driving migration to the UK today. It is unveiling a set of policies that will expose more people to the risks of lives on the margins of society and with reduced hope of protection from the law.
“But nothing in any of these pledges encourages the view that migration levels will come down as a consequence of the measures that will be adopted. Instead of taking a step back to review why the harsher measures in the old Immigration Act did not reduce net migration as they had hoped, the government is launching headfirst into more of the same.”
