UK: Only 1 in 70 Illegal Invaders Gets Arrested

Express
June 10, 2014

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The data has sparked fresh calls for Britain to quit the EU.

ONLY one in every 70 migrants suspected of being in the country illegally is arrested, Home Office figures revealed last night.

Government data handed to the Daily Express shows 28,442 were held in Britain in the past two years despite migration experts putting the total of people here without permission as high as two million.

The figures – reporting that the foreign nationals come from 159 different countries, one from nearly every nation on earth – have sparked fresh calls for Britain to quit the EU and reclaim control of our frontiers.

Critics say the problem is the result of a soft-touch approach to immigration over decades and the majority of hard-working Britons now put it as one of their major concerns.

Newly-elected Ukip MEP Tim Aker said: “It is out of control.

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UKIP MEP Tim Aker called it an ‘epidemic’ and said that stopping it was their top priority.

“These arrests barely scratch the surface and show the Government’s distasteful go-home wagons were a gimmick and not a reflection they were serious about combating illegal immigration.

“Tackling this epidemic would be a top priority for Ukip as we are the only party that would get back control of our borders.”

The number of suspected illegal immigrants held in the past two years accounts for less than 1.5 per cent of the total number estimated by the pressure group Migration Watch to be here without permission.

The figures, which were obtained under a Freedom of Information request, show individuals from Pakistan, India and Bangladesh account for more than half those arrested.

But the massive range of nationalities – there are only 195 officially-recognised countries in the world – includes illegal migrants from such distant places as Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Guinea-Bissau, Macau and French Polynesia.

There is no official estimate of the number of people here without permission but Migration Watch says the level of illegal immigration is “seriously underestimated”.

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Nearly four million migrants have arrived in the UK since 1997.

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