With record numbers of immigrants – both legal and illegal – arriving into our country, and crime levels seemingly out of control, it is amazing that it has taken so long for someone to insist that “details of nationality, immigration and visa status should be recorded whenever a criminal is convicted.”
Of course, there will be those who will insist that this is all somehow “racist”, usually the same people waving their “refugees welcome” placards.
And equally there will be others with an ‘anti-immigration agenda’ looking for more ammunition.
But at the end of the day, in the absence of “cold-hard facts”, do we not have the right to know this kind of information?
Ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick proposes migrant crime data is published
Details of nationality, immigration and visa status should be recorded whenever a criminal is convicted, ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick has proposed.
Mr Jenrick has submitted an amendment to the government’s Criminal Justice Bill, saying the data would help to inform deportation and visa policies.
“We would want to apply a higher level of scrutiny to nationalities that are higher risk,” he said.
Rishi Sunak has been under pressure to cut net migration figures.
Revised estimates published in November indicated net migration – the difference between the number of people arriving and leaving Britain – reached a record 745,000 in 2022.
Mr Jenrick resigned as immigration minister in December in protest at the prime minister’s Rwanda deportation plan.
“Ex-immigration minister Robert Jenrick proposes migrant crime data is published” – BBC News, 30th March 2024
Now, while I have concerns about the numbers of people illegally entering our country, I do think the whole ‘Rwanda Plan’ thing was a massive joke.
Mr Jenrick told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that in his role as immigration minister he encountered “significant and growing evidence that we [the UK] were importing crime.”
He said: “In the field of drug production, the National Crime Agency have been very clear that a significant proportion of the UK’s drug trade is being fuelled by Albanian drug production.”
He added that this had led to him investing “a great deal of time tying to stop that”.
Mr Jenrick said nationality was already taken into account when assessing visa applications as part of a “risk-based” strategy.
“What I’m proposing is that this data on crime plays a part in that. We would want to apply a higher level of scrutiny to nationalities that are higher risk,” he said.
Since leaving the EU and supposedly “taking back control” of our borders, it seems to me that the opposite has happened. “Freedom of movement” was supposed to come to an end, and it largely has, with regards to EU countries anyway.
But Albania has never been a member of the EU so it beats me why so many Albanians are being allowed to enter our country.
The Refugee Council told the BBC the UK’s asylum rules were “already very stringent” and that “serious criminals are not allowed to stay” in the country.
Its CEO Enver Solomon said: “The idea that very many people seeking asylum are dangerous offenders is not the case.”
The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford said official data on crimes committed by foreign nationals is”very limited”.
The observatory’s director, Dr Madeleine Sumption, went on to say figures in the public domain suggest there was “not much difference” between crimes committed between UK and non-UK nationals, but that more frequent publishing of figures “would help understand the impacts of migration on crime in more detail”.
The first paragraph of the above quote is almost laughable, and is another case of “they would say that”.
Yes, I agree that most asylum seekers are probably not dangerous offenders, but how on earth can this be determined for sure, when so many of them arrive ‘undocumented’?
Others will no doubt be able to highlight recent cases where people have been killed or injured by dangerous people who had no right to be in our country.
And what does “not much difference” really mean? Crime is crime, whether it is petty, minor, major or serious.
Although details of the nationalities of the people committing crimes is not collated, the Home Office does routinely publish details of the nationalities of those criminals who end up serving a prison sentence.
At the end of June 2023, there were 10,321 foreign nationals in prison in England and Wales, out of a total prison population of 85,851.
More than half of foreign prisoners were European. The most common nationalities were Albanian, Polish, Romanian, Irish and Jamaican.
I calculate that just over 12% of prisoners are foreign nationals, which doesn’t sound like a huge number. But the question to be asked is why are we spending money housing these criminals in UK prisons?
But this figure only counts those who are serving a sentence, and doesn’t count those charged with crimes that don’t carry a custodial sentence.
Convicted criminals are already subject to visa restrictions. UK government guidelines state that any foreign national who has been convicted of a criminal offence in the UK or overseas and handed a custodial sentence of 12 months or more would “normally” be refused a visa for entry into the UK.
This is all well and good for those applying for visas through the “proper and legal channels” to gain entry to the UK. But what about the thousands of illegal immigrants arriving on our shores on dinghies from across the Channel? These ‘undocumented’ people have given up or thrown away their passports and identification papers, so how would anyone know if they have been convicted of any criminal offence in whichever country they have travelled from?
Mr Jenrick later told the BBC: “We cannot hope to fix out immigration system without understanding the problem.”
He added: “There is mounting concern that the UK is importing crime, particularly violent crime, sexual assaults and drug production. We need to have transparency so the public know what’s happening and policy can be formulated accordingly.
“An open immigration system is creating serious problems in communities, but without data we can’t have an informed debate.”
Yes, I agree, there is mounting concern. As others have said before, “import the third world, become the third world”.
The left-wing hand-wringers who believe that all “refugees are welcome” and that all migrants are ‘victims’, should surely have no problems with this kind of data being recorded, especially if it proves that “migrants are not the problem here”.
Personally I think if this starts being recorded, after 12 months it will make some VERY uncomfortable reading.
In my opinion, now we have left the EU, freedom of movement has ended, any non-UK national convicted of a crime should be deported back to their country of origin. I’m tired of this country being treated like a holiday camp for foreign criminals.
