More Half-baked Immigration Measures | Adam Collyer

Leaky as a Sieve
Image by Kodak Roam via Flickr.

The government have announced “tough new curbs” on illegal immigration. They will be part of the Immigration Bill. The Telegraph headlines them Illegal Immigrants to be Kept Off Road.

Apparently, according to the Telegraph, they are

the Government’s response to the rise of the UK Independence Party and growing public unease about immigration.

If it’s their response then it is an inadequate one.

Firstly, of course, these measures only cover illegal immigration. Legal immigration is not affected, including the unlimited right of citizens from all other EU member states to settle in the UK. From January 1st, that right will be extended to the citizens of Romania and Bulgaria, but it already applies to places like Poland and Latvia.

Remember – those government figures for “net migration”, currently running at over 200,000 per year, only cover legal migration.

Worse – the measures in the Bill are empty posturing anyway.

First up: driving licences.

The Bill will give the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency powers to check the immigration status of people applying for a licence. In addition, immigrants who are found to have overstayed in Britain will have their licences revoked.

Let’s have a look at the current process for applying for a UK driving licence.

You have to provide identification, obviously, to get a driving licence. From the DVLA website:

You can send:

• a full valid current passport


• a biometric residence permit (formerly known as the identity card for foreign nationals)


• a UK certificate of naturalisation

In other words, you already have to prove you are not an illegal immigrant to get a driving licence. I guess in any case that if you are happy to be in the country illegally, you probably aren’t too worried about driving without a driving licence either.

The “new” provisions on driving licences, then, will do absolutely nothing that the law does not already do to keep illegal immigrants off the road.

Next up: bank accounts.

Bank staff will be legally required to check applicants’ details against databases held by anti-fraud organisations. The Home Office said that such databases hold government data on “tens of thousands of illegal migrants”.

What – wait! (As the Americans say.) They are admitting that they know the details of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, including their addresses, and they are still in the country?!

The “new” measures, like the driving licence ones, are little different from the current law anyway. Under the current regulations, as the British Bankers’ Association says:

By law, bank staff must verify your identity and your address. They cannot use the same document to verify both.

For example, Barclays Bank requires one of the following to prove your identity:

• Full and valid UK or foreign passport


• Photocard national identity card


• Full UK paper driving licence


• A full/provisional UK or foreign photocard driving licence


• Benefit entitlement letter (less than 12 months old, confirming benefit payable at time of issue)


• Blue disabled driver’s pass


• Student ID card

plus one of the following to prove your address:

• Full UK paper driving licence (if not already used to verify your identity)


• UK or foreign bank/credit card statement (less than 3 months old and not printed from the internet). Store card statements are not accepted.


• UK mortgage statement (less than 12 months old and not printed from the internet)


• Council Tax bill, payment book or exemption certificate (less than 12 months old)


• Council/Housing Association tenancy agreement​. Private tenancy agreements are not accepted


• Council rent book/card​ (showing a payment within past 12 months)

In effect, then, you already have to prove that you are resident in Britain to open a bank account.

And finally: housing.

As the Telegraph says:

Despite doubts about its viability, the Bill will also contain a legal requirement for private landlords to check the immigration status of tenants.

Yes, even the Telegraph precedes that with “despite doubts about its viability”.

However, I guess such a duty could indeed be imposed, although it would be mighty hard to enforce.

Here’s a question: how would a landlord check “the immigration status of tenants”? You could check their passport, or their driving licence, or indeed their bank account details. Frankly, I would assume that most landlords already check those. Would landlords do that?

The very scrupulous ones would. You know, the ones who already check that their tenants are legitimate – not least, because they’re keen to make sure the tenants are likely to go on paying the rent.

Do you think that the unscrupulous ones would check? How likely would they be to be discovered not checking such a thing? What would happen if they were discovered? A small fine? Would that be enough to encourage them to check immigration status?

Sounds pretty unworkable to me. But of the three measures in the Bill, it’s the only one that is even half meaningful.

So there we have it. The Government’s response to the rise of UKIP.

Two meaningless measures that are the same as the law is now, and a third measure that even the Tory-supporting Telegraph thinks is of doubtful viability.

What then would a serious attempt to control illegal migration look like?

It would start with counting people in and out to make sure they don’t outstay their welcome at the end of their holiday visas. John Major’s Conservative government abolished that. Tony Blair promised to reimpose it by 2012. In October last year we were still waiting. Since then, it has gone very quiet.

Incidentally, when I last visited Ukraine a couple of years ago, they were still counting people in and out very successfully using their antiquated USSR-era computer system. But it’s apparently too hard in our “advanced Western economy”.

As usual, the government’s new “announcement” is all about news management. Even Acts of Parliament these days are more like government press releases than actual measures designed to govern the country.

Source: http://adamcollyer.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/more-half-baked-immigration-measures/
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