New Immigration Act Will Tighten Screws On Illegal Immigrants And Cut Human Rights Appeals

Cynthia Barker writes...Just getting ready for a live interview with a Manila radio station which wants to know how the new Immigration Act will affect Filipinos in the UK.

For the vast majority of Filipino British residents who are here legally, for instance the many thousands of nurses and care assistants who work in the NHS, the new laws will have little effect - except perhaps those who want to marry or enter into a Civil Partnership.

However, the new Act, which received the 'Royal Assent' on 14th May, will make life tougher for illegal immigrants and visa overstayers in the UK, the Home Office hopes.

New laws will force landlords to check the immigration status of tenants and banks to check a database for immigration offenders before opening an account.

The million plus illegal immigrants said to be in Britain will also find it more difficult to obtain a driving licence, as links between the Home Office and other government departments are strengthened.

What next? Perhaps we will have to show our passport before we get on a bus or train? Or those previously dropped plans to introduce mandatory ID cards for everyone will make a comeback?

How about getting Tescos to scan your passport along with your Clubcard to stop visa overstayers eating?

The government also wants to clamp down on 'medical tourism' and abuse of the NHS by making temporary visa applicants, such as students make a contribution to the UK health service.

There is one government department which doesn't seem to mind whether or not you are legally in the UK: HM Revenue and Customs! HMRC will take your tax, no questions asked, even if you are working in the UK illegally. However, the employer could be fined £10,000 for employing an illegal worker.

Even us immigration advisers will be subject to stricter controls as the OISC regulator is given new powers to clamp down on advisers who submit 'no hope' further leave to remain applications to the Home Office, which according to the government clog up the system and waste public money.

The Home Office hopes the new Act will reduce Human Rights appeals and Article 8 'right to a family life' claims allowing foreign criminals to remain in the UK. Overstayers will be deported first and have to lodge their appeal in their own country. Immigration detainees will be prevented from lodging endless bail hearings once they have been refused.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, including overstaying your visa, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

Human Rights Appeal Saves Baby Killer From Deportation

Cynthia Barker writes...This week I read that a foreign nurse who force-fed her baby to death has successfully appealed against her deportation on 'Article 8' grounds that it would breach her right to a family life.

The Daily Mail reported that the Ghanaian woman won her appeal to stay in Britain under human rights laws which puts the rights of her children (family life) before the Home Office right to deport a convicted foreign criminal.

The 33-year-old former nurse had been jailed for causing the baby’s death, yet has now been granted anonymity by the Judge.

The Home Office said the ruling was ‘disappointing’ and are considering appealing against the decision in the higher Court of Appeal.

Here’s her story. After serving her three-year prison sentence, she was released in April last year to look after her three surviving children.

The Home Secretary Theresa May has made several attempts to remove the woman, who can be referred to only as GHA.

This case, the latest in a long line of successful appeals by convicted foreign criminals, will raise protests about the use of the European Convention on Human Rights to avoid deportation.

The African nurse came to the UK on a student visa in 2000 and remained in the UK. During her trial it was revealed that she used a small milk jug to tip baby rice African corn porridge and chicken soup into her child’s mouth.

Conservative MP and Lawyer Dominic Raab called for the reining-in of human rights laws, and said: ‘Many people will look at this case, a mother jailed for force-feeding her baby and feel it reflects the warped nature of our human rights laws today.

‘The argument is that she is being separated from her kids but not only was she separated from them in prison but there were also care proceedings brought against her. 

'The children have also spent periods of time in Ghana so the arguments for not deporting her fall away. It shows how the judges have expanded and shifted the goalposts from human rights in a way that is pretty arbitrary and perverse.

‘It does not reflect anything written into the ECHR and certainly not anything Parliament has agreed to.

‘Article 8 is being used by convicted, jailed criminals to stay in this country. This isn’t the only case. I actually think the article can be a threat to family life, in particular vulnerable children and partners.’

"Crazy" human rights laws

Raab pointed out that around 90 per cent of successful deportation appeals, up to 400 appeal cases each year,  are using ‘Article 8’: ‘Article 8 is the single biggest problem for deporting a serious foreign criminal and this is something that has only really developed in the last seven years. What will it be like in another seven? It could be almost impossible to deport someone.’

Another MP Peter Bone described the use of human rights law to protect the nurse ‘crazy’. He added: ‘The ECHR was never intended to protect people who carry out terrible crimes from being sent back to their own country.’ 

The three-year sentence handed to GHA at the trial in 2011 meant that under Home Office rules she should have been up for automatic deportation. 

However, attempts to deport her following her release from prison were rejected after she appealed and won her case at a lower immigration tribunal in February.

When the Home Office lodged an appeal to overturn the decision at the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber last month, the earlier decision was upheld. 

Unbelievably, a social services report deemed her children were under ‘no significant risk of harm’ form the child killer and described the family as a ‘close, committed unit with strong cultural and religious beliefs’. Her partner was granted custody of the three children following care proceedings in 2010 and the family has lived in a three-bed London home since GHA’s release. 

The Mail added that in her trial it emerged that GHA, who had already applied for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) in the UK when her child died, had paid ‘little attention’ to social services who had been involved with the family.

It added: ‘Through the recently passed Immigration Act, we are making it easier to remove people from the UK and harder for individuals to prolong their stay with spurious appeals, by cutting the number of appeal rights from 17 to four.

‘It will also ensure that judges deal with Article 8 claims in the right way — making clear the right to a family life is not regarded as absolute and unqualified.’ Source: Daily Mail.

Judges are often criticized for their human rights appeal judgments, but at the end of the day they are only upholding the law. If her children, who may now be British Citizens, have grown up in the UK it would be difficult to see how a judge could rule that she should be deported under the current Immigration Rules and Human Rights laws.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.

How To Waste £500 Million On 'e borders' System That Cannot Control Immigration Or Visa Overstayers

Cynthia Barker writes…Unbelievable! The Home Office has blown £500m on a computer system for its ‘e-Borders’ control programme - to check everybody coming in and out of Britain – but ministers have now admitted that it cannot estimate immigration.

Home Office official told MPs on the Public Administration Select Committee (PAC) that data from the programme, which took 10 years and half a billion pounds to build, cannot be used to replace the existing methods of estimating net migration to Britain because it does not collect information about whether passengers are long-term migrants or just visitors or tourists.

What? Did someone forget to ask that question? Hello!!!

The Home Office are saying that it would be illegal under European Union legislation on ‘free movement’ to ask passengers how long they intend to stay or their purpose in entering the UK. Another example of how EU and EEA rules help immigrants. However,since EU/EEA migrants are only allowed to stay in the UK for 90 days without exercising treaty rights, for instance as a self-employed worker, self-sufficient person or student, it would seem logical to ask the question at the border?

The truth of the matter is the Home Office has no idea exactly how many illegal immigrants or visa overstayers are in the UK because there is no system to count them in or out. I recently put this question to Theresa May, the Home Secretary in charge of the Home Office, when I met her. She admitted that there have been problems with border control going back over 15 years, but said the e borders scheme will be operational by 2015.

There have been various estimates that there are between 500,000 and 750,000 overstayers in the UK. The ippr (Institute for Public Policy Research) said it will take 20 years and £5 billion to track them all down and deport them. Let's face it...it's not going to happen, so we need to start looking at workable plans to deal with the situation such as a legalisation programme for overstaying migrants - as long as we don't mention the unmentionable word "amnesty"!

Even when an overstayer is picked up by the Home Office (usually after a tip-off) they can appeal against a removal order on human rights 'article 8' or 'right to a family life' grounds if they own a cat (not really unless you believe the Daily Mail) are in a relationship, or especially if they have children. The same law applies even if you are a convicted murder or rapist - a Jamaican killer was allowed to stay because he said he was gay! Illegal immigrants often spend months in detention centres, at great cost to the government, only to be released on appeal and eventually granted indefinite leave to remain (ILR) or permanent residency in the UK.

If you need advice on any immigration matter, EU or UK immigration law, or want to appeal against a refusal, call Cynthia Barker on 07850 307687 or 0208 731 5972 or email her your details to immigration@londonccs.com. Cynthia Barker is a qualified OISC Registered Immigration Adviser, with 15 years experience in immigration matters, with a team of Level 3 Immigration Law Practitioners, Concept Care Solutions, Middlesex House, 29-45 High Street, Edgware, HA8 7UU.