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Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister and Tory leadership contender, has proposed a bold plan to tackle illegal immigration, calling for visa bans on countries that refuse to take back their nationals. This is great news and something MW has long called for and was in our written evidence to parliament for the Immigration and Borders Bill tabled in Parliament in July 2021.
Speaking ahead of the Conservative Party conference, Mr Jenrick outlined a five-point strategy to increase the number of illegal migrant removals fivefold, aiming for over 100,000 removals per year. One key part of Mr Jenrick’s plan is to impose visa restrictions and cut foreign aid to countries that don’t cooperate with the UK on returning illegal migrants. He cited Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia as examples. Despite these countries receiving millions in aid, only a small fraction of their nationals have been returned after coming to the UK or remaining here illegally.
Mr Jenrick also wants to declare Vietnam, Turkey, and Brazil as safe countries, allowing for quicker deportations like the deal with Albania. He argued that these nations are not conflict zones but rather popular holiday destinations. This is something else we called for in the written evidence we submitted to the Public Bill Committee, which was referred to when the Nationality and Borders Act was published.
In addition, Mr Jenrick highlighted India’s case, where despite benefitting from 250,000 UK visas in the past year, there are an estimated 100,000 Indian nationals in the UK without authority to be here; in other words, ‘illegal migrants’. He called for visa suspensions for countries that refuse to take back their nationals -student and visitor visas included.
Mr Jenrick further called for reforms to the UK’s Human Rights Act, to ease deportations. He proposed too, making companies criminally liable for employing illegal migrants. Dare we say, another Migration Watch proposal. And, may here make clear that Mr Jenrick has been briefed by us, he has not? Moreover, MW Is in no way linked to the Conservatives (or any other party.) Nor are we suggesting that those eligible to vote in the Tory leadership election should vote for him or any other candidate. Nevertheless, Mr Jenrick’s robust approach is clearly going down well given polling now makes him the front runner. And, of course, he topped the parliamentary round of the process. His focus on swift deportations aligns with the desire to “take back control” of UK borders, a stance we have long called for at MW. We would also like to see firm caps on legal migration (annual net migration of no more than 100,000; preferably, considerably less.) It is clear to us that such a radical policy shift is essential if the damage already done to the UK’s immigration system is to be addressed.
This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every week as soon as it is released.