Last week the home secretary, Amber Rudd, released five separate reports compiled by the chief inspector of borders and immigration, David Bolt. Within the report that dealt with “exit checks” was the revelation that 600,000 foreign visitors had been lost in the system and it was not known whether those individuals had returned home or were in the UK illegally (Report, 29 March).
This sorry state of affairs can be traced back to the sacking of IT contractors Raytheon by Theresa May when she was home secretary back in 2010, which cost the taxpayer £150m in a final legal settlement. Since then efforts to progress the border control systems have been shambolic. The Home Office rebuffed David Bolt’s criticism and stated it is launching yet another system labelled the “Advanced Border Control” project: Border Force officers are not holding their breath.
By releasing five reports on the same day amid the welter of news surrounding Brexit, Salisbury and John Worboys, Amber Rudd managed to limit media and public scrutiny of other important criticisms contained in these reports. These included border controls at Stansted airport, the treatment of child refugees and the initiative labelled “right to rent”, whereby those in the UK illegally would be brought to notice by virtue of landlords checking their status. The only report that passed muster featured human trafficking.
Amber Rudd’s announcement that 1,000 extra Border Force officers would be recruited brought wry smiles from officers working at those borders. Government cuts have meant that experienced officers haemorrhaged out of the service, many new recruits leave within months, and a disturbing number of established officers are actively seeking other employment.
The prospect of post-Brexit chaos at our borders looms large.
Chris Hobbs
Retired Met police border control officer
• Last year, my Peruvian daughter-in-law, who lives in Spain with my British son, applied for a six-month visitor’s visa so that she could attend my daughter’s wedding. She filled in copious forms, paid £89 and had to make an 800-mile round trip, including an overnight stay, from Malaga to Madrid to have biometric measurements taken. She arrived at Gatwick airport just before the May bank holiday and left from Gatwick some six days later.
Three weeks before her visa was due to expire, she received an email from the Home Office telling her bluntly that she should immediately make arrangements to leave the country, followed by a list of sanctions that would be taken if she failed to comply. The email was accompanied by a form inviting her to let them know if she had actually left!
Not only is the Home Office incompetent and dysfunctional in not being able to identify who has left the country, but it also adopts an unnecessarily unpleasant and threatening tone. To add insult to injury, it sent a similar email after the expiry date despite having been informed that she was no longer in the UK.
How are we going to “take back control” of our borders when we haven’t got control in the first place?
TA Brady
Crawley, West Sussex
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