UKC

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/26/grandmother-deported-from-u...

Words fail me, pretty much.

I also noted the loathsome Sean Spicer saying that it was absurd to link the fellow who walked up to a couple of brown-skinned people in Kansas, asked whether they had a visa, and shot one of them dead, with Trump's stoking of racial hatred. Just have to colour me absurd, I guess.

To quote the US show Full Frontal, don't you wish these people would grow a pair and own their pointless cruelty?!

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
Hardly an "immigrant" if she's lived in the UK for 30 years. It's not like she hasn't had plenty of time to ensure her legal residence status.

In reply to Big Gerk:

A quick search for the definition of "immigrant" reveals:

"a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country."

And

"a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence"

And

"a person who has come to a different country in order to live there permanently:"

Note that lack of a timespan. Still - it's not like you are ever wrong about anything........

In reply to Big Ger:


Your point being?

b

In reply to ben b:

My point being, she's lived in the UK for over half her life, 30 of her 53 years, which, one would assume, seeing as she has a husband, children and grandchildren there, she enjoyed doing. I would have been in her interest therefore to ensure she had legal residency.

Otherwise, she ...errmmmm may get kicked out and lose all of that.

In reply to Big Ger:

She had been granted indefinite leave to remain, which was rescinded because of time she spent in Singapore nursing her sick parent.

So I think it's safe to say that she had sorted out her legal status.

In reply to Big Ger:

"she's lived in the UK for over half her life", "she has a husband, children and grandchildren there"

I would be amazed if many people in that situation would even suspect that there was even any doubt about their legal residency. I don't know which is worse, the fact that she still didn't have legal residency in those circumstances, or the fact there are people like yourself who would assume she didn't or shouldn't have.

In reply to Big Ger:

To reduce numbers, it would be much cheaper to refuse those who have left the country for, say, ooh, Australia and contributed nothing for years, rather than beat up those who have made their home here and contributed for decades.

In reply to Andy Hardy:

My sympathy here is with the deported woman and her family. I've only seen this news story today but I intend to do a bit more reading about the case and write to my MP. On the face of it it's an appalling decision that appears to contradict human rights law given the family connection, and that will probably cost the state more money in several tragic ways

However:



Not sorted sufficiently well as it was invalidated by her actions.

I have colleagues and neighbours who have made a total commitment to the UK after moving here for work - marriages, children etc. They are - understandably - under masssive stress whilst the terms of our EU exit are unknown.

Obtaining UK citezenship seems a not unreasonable action. I'd never plan to move abroard perkenantly without actively planning to get citizenship as rapidly as possible.

In reply to Andy Hardy:


That's true, and it's to the shame of our border agency that they couldn't make allowances for her, or given her the opportunity to resolve this.

In reply to john arran:


First thing I did when I got to Aus, (on a spousal visa,) was apply for PR, when I had lived here long enough, I took up full citizenship.

I agree with your general point though.

In reply to MG:



If you are referring to me, (of course you are you little scamp,) then what makes you think I have contributed nothing in the UK in the past 16 years?

In reply to Big Ger:


Whilst I have every sympathy for the woman and her family, at the moment this is a very one-sided story.
It seems to me that there is probably more information that the Border Agency have about the case that we do not (and they are probably unable to disclose no matter how much bad publicity they get).

For instance how long were the periods of looking after her parents? A few weeks, months, or periods of several years or more??

>>"She has made repeated attempts – in Singapore and back in the UK – to reapply for permission to live with her husband."
It seems the BA have given her the opportunity to resolve this, and have considered the case many times but have still decided that this is the correct and legal action.

In reply to Big Ger:

your credit here just dropped through the floor

I don't think the women should have been deported as it's patently 'not fair', but these arbitrary decisions on immigration aren't new in this country. Spike Milligan wasn't eligible for British citizenship despite being born to British parents, fighting for the British Army all through WW2 and living in Britain for most of his life.

I have a friend who had two children whilst living as a British ex-pat in Zimbabwe. One was born when it was Ian Smith's rebel UDI Rhodesia and was eligible for a British Passport. The younger one was born in those few weeks in 1979(?) when the country technically returned to being a British Colony before become independent as Zimbabwe. The younger child was deemed to be an citizen of a British Overseas Territory (IIRC) as has no right to residency in the UK. His parents returned to the UK in 1982 and he lived here as a dependent child from the age 3 to 18 when he was deported.

In reply to Jim Lancs:


It's complicated, and even more so before 1983...

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/4...

Our daughter was born in South Africa and has a UK passport but life might be complicated for her kids if she were to have any outside the UK. I'm also increasingly concerned that the rules might be further changed retrospectively, given the current climate.

On the plus side, I'm hoping she might apply for dual South African citizenship and that we might have somewhere to escape to...

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
The Guardian report is slightly misleading if this petition to save her is correct..It seems to me that she spent 2 years in the UK, then left for 21 years and came back in 2013 (i might have misunderstood this). I am not agreeing with the decision as I know nothing about the law in this regard, but is there an agenda of leaving this info out from the Guardian?

https://www.change.org/p/save-irene-clennell-from-being-deported-her-family...

"She married her husband John a British Citizen in 1990. She was then granted Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the UK.
But now the Home Office won’t allow her to stay because she spent time in Singapore.
Irene returned to Singapore in 1992 to provide care and support to her sick mother. As a daughter, it was only natural that Irene wanted to care for her mother. Her husband relocated then to Singapore and together had 2 children.
John returned to the UK with the children in 1998 in the hope that Irene would join too. After her mother’s death, Irene returned and made at least 3 applications to renew her ILR but applications were rejected on the basis that she had used incorrect forms.
Irene attempted to return to the UK in 2007 but was refused entry at the airport immigration checkpoint and led to believe that she was banned from returning to the UK for 5 years.
In 2008, Irene’s father was diagnosed with cancer and she stayed in Singapore to care for her father until he passed away in 2012.
Irene then made her application for permission to return to the UK. The Singapore British Embassy rejected Irene’s application off hand after the interview as she was unable to produce the evidence of all contact made with her husband and children through Yahoo messenger and telephone calls.
Irene returned in 2013

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Just for the sake of balance, the Mail makes the same omissions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190826/Grandmother-married-Briton-...

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Look North showed her husband's health to be in a pretty poor state. I'd imagine humanity here would be repaid by allowing her to provide care that would probably much cheaper to the state and better for him. Then we can repay that by deporting her if he's no longer around.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

Yes, I had only read the OPs link...it seems that a lot of info has been omitted for the news wires. My suspicions were raised when it was being used to attack the government when the story seemed implausibly callous with the info given and I notice Ron Rees Davies above noticed this as well. Like I said, I have no idea about the legality of her situation but it would be interesting to hear the full story before jumping to any conclusions .

In reply to Bjartur i Sumarhus:

Damn you with your objective opinions and demand for un-spun facts

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

As somebody else pointed out. This sort of stuff isn't new, and much of it stems for incompetence.

I had a work colleague who was born in Zanzibar (of British parents who, of all things, worked for MI6!). Somewhere along the line of independence or whatever the authorities (and his parents) had mislaid any evidence of his birth or nationality so he had to live for a year or two as "stateless" and unable to leave the UK.

When my own wife applied for indefinite leave 30 years ago it took months of contradictory requests and instructions from the Home office about what was required. Eventually she flew back to Japan to apply from there. On turning up at Looney House in Croydon to finalise it all they questioned why she had flown back to Japan!

After living abroad for a few years (with me!) she had to reapply on returning to the UK. That was another year of bureacratic idiocy culminating in getting our MP involved.

Basically we now have far more migrants to handle and not the resources to do it. Watch this space post brexit!!

In reply to Postmanpat:
Somebody who worked for a relative was deported after the company was bought by another one based in Europe, and his visa still bore the name of the company he got his visa for pre buy out & change of name. Given the speed with which he was deported, he didn't have a chance to get things straightened out, and anybody he spoke to within the system of people dealing with deporting him, acknowledged that it was nothing more than an oversight, but (seemingly) nobody had the authority to put a halt to him having to leave. A successful UK company generating income for the country has lost a good member of it's R&D team because of the need to be 'tough on immigration'. He's working remotely from Brazil now, but it isn't quite the same as being in the same room and able to chew over ideas with other people. He's wanting to move to France now, having been put off the UK I think. With him being intelligent and good in his role, the UK hasn't gained anything from him having to leave, with the job he was doing here being advertised in the UK as well as overseas before he was chosen.

In reply to Postmanpat:


We're the world's seventh largest economy*, and we haven't the resources to handle even extreme cases such as these?? I think we lack both the will and the generosity. (Mind you, we were the world's fifth largest before the Brexit vote.)

In reply to Timmd:

>
Actually, although incompetence and oversights have been a recurring feature for years, I do think that in their effort to meet targets the authorities focused on the "low hanging fruit" and exploited minor administrative errors such as you highlight. I've heard some appalling stories on this, including a friend who got deported as a result (having spent £2k on barristers etc only for the HO to keep getting the case adjourned.)

I can't believe May wasn't aware of how the targets were being met.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:

As I said, it's always the case. The system is utterly mad. By definition the type of people requiring visas are the type who need to travel a lot, often on business. But the system insists on holding your passport for months (and sometimes losing it) whilst the cogs slowly turn.

Was it Clarke who described the Home Office as "not fit for purpose"?

In reply to wercat:


What credit have I ever had?

In reply to Postmanpat:


John Reid

In reply to Big Ger:


She had it.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Oh, really, so they cannot kick her out then! Hooray problem solved!!!!

In reply to Big Ger:

Yes, they can, she lost it by going away from the country for too long to care for family.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Thanks for highlighting this John. Another one for the list of shame that came to my attention today:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exception-student-deportatio...

"Shiromini is a 20 year old student on track for a first class degree, just three months from completing her engineering degree at Bangor University. Last week this model student was arrested and taken to Yarl’s Wood Detention Centre with her mother. She is due to be deported to Sri Lanka at 9pm tomorrow. What is happening to Shiromini is brutal. As a representative of students in Wales, I have been working hard with other students to get the Home Office to reconsider the case. It is absurd that the Home Office are removing Shiromini at such a crucial time of her studies, and that’s why I’m calling for the Home Office to stop her deportation. Please join me.

https://www.change.org/p/amber-rudd-mp-stop-shiromini-getting-deported-she-...

Since the age of 12, Shiromini has been living in the UK after fleeing the Sri Lankan civil war. She was dependent on her father’s student visa but he died in 2011 from bowel cancer complications. Since then she and her mother were granted leave to remain. She went on to pass all her exams and get a place at Bangor University in 2014. Shiromini launched this petition on Friday in a desperate attempt to get help, and her friends have been trying to speak with her but it has been difficult and she says phone signal at the centre is bad. Support for Shiromini has been covered in national press, the Vice Chancellor of Bangor University released a statement saying that he has written to the Home Office asking them to allow Shiromini to stay and complete her studies. Welsh MPs are also backing the campaign. We only have 24 hours to stop this. Please join us in asking Amber Rudd to let Shiromini and her mother stay ."

Carmen Ria Smith Deputy President at NUS Wales

In reply to Big Ger:

oh well, join the club..

In reply to RomTheBear:


So she had it, then lost it.

So needed to regain it.

In reply to Offwidth:


Do keep up old chap.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-39110635

Never mind, you can still revel in your self assumed guilt of your heinous country's actions...

In reply to Big Ger:

So all that disgusting treatment is obviously fine now they have backed down with only hours to go? The issue is it shouldn't have happened at all. You really are a nasty piece of work.

In reply to Offwidth:


Nobody said anything was "fine" about their actions did they?

Sorry if I robbed you of an opportunity for a good piece of self-flagellation though.

In reply to Offwidth:

How do you think such cases actually come about? Don't you think that in many cases it is a case of an overworked junior administrator making a bad decision? By the sound of this case the decision to deport was only conveyed a few days ago.

There is no evidence I can see that any senior civil servant let alone a minister was aware of it, let alone responsible for it.

In reply to Postmanpat:

But let's not stop him giving himself a damn good thrashing eh?

In reply to Postmanpat:

I have no idea how it could have happened. The fact it did is very worrying to me. That in one week someone can go from being a successful final year student, from a settled refugee family background, to being on the edge of forced deportation should be impossible in my country. The idea a junior administrative slip could cause something like this seems ridiculous.

In reply to Offwidth:

Like Reid said , "not fit for purpose". The idea might be "ridiculous" but it's totally believable.

What one would like to know is what safeguards there are in place to stop it happening or whether there are (and there maybe) guidlines on high to stick firmly to the strictest interpretation of the laws and ignore any "mitigating circumstance". I suspect that when a case like this gets, via the media, to the desk of the senior civil servant or Minister there is an explosion of frustration with the bureaucratic incompetence that has put them in the shit..

I don't know about you but I believe JCM is generally a believer in the "cock up" school rather than the "conspiracy" school. It is curious, therefore that when there is a chance to indulge in a bit of Tory bashing he, and you, are firm believers in conspiracies.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:


More bollocks....

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

And more http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-latest-eu-national-ri...

jk

In reply to Jim 1003:


Which bit and what are your alternative facts?
jk

In reply to Postmanpat:


Even if so, doesn't that show deep problems? Something as serious as deportation, which is expensive, traumatising for the deportee, and potentially violent, shouldn't be down to the whim of a junior administrator.

Is there a policy anywhere about what triggers deportation, for the presumably many potential candidates? Stories such as this given a feeling of easy targets being preyed upon.

In reply to MG:

>
As I understand the rule is very simple, if a person doesn't meet the requirements to be allowed rights to remain, they will be deported. The junior adminstrator doesn't decide to deport as such, they go through what is effectively a tick list to judge whether the person has a right to remain.

My interpretation of what happened (jon Stewart used to work there, he may know) is that in the past the laws were often ignored by the authorities. When reduction in immigration became a policy target the first and most obvious thing to do was to implement existing laws. So they did. The result has been pretty invidious because it means getting the "low hanging fruit" (because they are easily indentified) and missing the rest.

A combination of shortage of resources and incompetence means that proper redress is very hard to get. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the HO also uses every tactic of delay and subterfuge to make redress difficult to come by.

In reply to Jim 1003:

Why do you never answer simple questions Jim?
jk

In reply to Postmanpat:

I have dozens of stories like that in my circles of friends.
One of my Taiwanese friend (a PhD who lived 10 years in the UK, with a British husband, and a fancy marketing executive job) cannot leave the uk to see her dying mother whilst her appeal for ILR is resolved (it will take two years or more), otherwise she wouldn't be able to get back in the country, where her husband and child live.
All of this because of a missing payslip she couldn't find.

May I point out the only reason there is a right of appeal is because the Uk is part of the ECHR. Once we inevitably get out of this immigration decisions will be final.

It's not only administrative incompetence, there is a deliberate political will to harass immigrants that they eventually give up, just to meet a stupid net immigration target.

In reply to Postmanpat:

One of my maxims is never assume conspiracy when cock-up is a possibility. However, I just don't believe a junior administrator could cause something as bad as this to happen as fast as it did. Yet in the end the exact cause is something we will never know and as such the details of why are beside the point: it shouldn't have happened and whatever made it happen needs fixing fast.

In reply to Offwidth:

As an aside, it took us about a minute to get to the obvious question of "how does this happen"? Have you ever seen a decent media piece asking the same question and trying to find out the answer, because I haven't.

All we get is emotive pieces about "floods of cheating immigrants" or "isn't this unfair. Isn't the government horrid".

In reply to Offwidth:


It's not a cock up - it's just the strict application of uk law.

In reply to Offwidth:

meanwhile in Durham there is an oldish British born man in poor health whose wife is now on the far side of the world

In reply to Offwidth:

the problem is that the derogatory term "Red tape" has been applied not only to fiddly regulations but also to checks and balances that should prevent lives from being ruined without redress. The populist view is "Burn the [red tape/books/visas]"

The lady from durham interviewed last night described how she was frogmarched into detention without a chance to argue. She was not composed enough to speak easily and her husband also seemed bewildered. But what can they do now? Does it even matter at all given the will of the people?

In reply to Offwidth:

According to the policy below, detention is authorised "at a minimum of higher executive officer (HEO) level in criminal casework". An HEO, despite their grand sounding job title, is on 25 - 30 thousand pounds a year, which whilst not exactly junior admin, isn't senior management either.

Also worth noting that 12,000 people were subject to "enforced removal" in 2015, out of 40,000 who were either removed or left of their own accord, following encouragement from the UKBA. So it is impractical to have senior sign off for each and everyone one of those cases.

Finally, it is interesting that certain candidates for deportation require ministerial sign-off and one of the criteria for qualification is the posssibility of significant media exposure. So the UKBA has created a situation where it is very much in the interests of potential deportees to tell the press about their situation. Given that, i'm actuallly surprised we don't see more stories in the press.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/5...

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/2...

In reply to Bob Hughes:

"Good work. You'll get case of beer for that!"

In reply to Bob Hughes:

I wonder what all the figures are in other Western economies like USA, France, Germany, Australia etc.

I bet if you looked it would be equally as depressing and inefficent with some heart breaking stories.

Certainly when you speak to people who relocate etc etc to the States, it sounds horrendous.

In reply to Postmanpat:


AKA: If you give low level civil servants cause to think their cushy ride may be at risk, they start pulling all the stops out to appear to be doing a job.

In reply to Postmanpat:

There is no shortage of immigration lawyer, academic, and migrant rights blogs to explain the situation in details.
The reality is that bureaucratic rules are by nature unfair and do not take into account individual circumstances.

Freedom of movement is by far the best system, and should be the preferred to a visas system wherever practical.

Expect a lot more unfair deportations and broken families once the UK leaves the EU, and even more when the the UK leaves the ECHR.

In reply to RomTheBear:


So, the entire population of Sub-Saharan Africa of 800 million people, should be free to move into Europe?

In reply to Big Ger:

I said "wherever practical." But obviously you read whatever you want to read.
You know for example, doing it with democratic countries of similar living standard and culture, with which we have been doing it successfully (very successfully, one might say) for decades. Certainly more practical than setting up a huge administrative authoritarian state machine to harass people who are esteemed colleagues friends, family members and productive members of society.

But I totally appreciate that many British people do not give a single fuck about them (or they think, wrongly, that the rules will somehow not apply to those they know) that's not new.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Well, "whenever practical" was not exactly specific, now that I've pushed you you've got more accurate.



So people living under undemocratic, totalitarian regimes, would not qualify, neither would those starving and needy living in third world countries ? That's a bit harsh of you.


oh, whose set up one of them then?


Well, you do hate us British, just like we despise the French.

In reply to Big Ger:

Speak for yourself!

Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie,
L'étendard sanglant est levé,

L'étendard sanglant est levé!

Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
Mugir ces féroces soldats?
Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras
Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes!

Aux armes, citoyens,
Formez vos bataillons,
Marchons, marchons!
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons!

In reply to Hugh J:

I was, of course, just ribbing our resident French/Scots/British pet bear.

In reply to Big Ger:

In fact I think a simple answer to reduce net migration would have been to strike reciprocal free movement deals with more countries, such as Australia, Canada, or New Zealand. There is broad popular support for this in all these countries. Here is a solution to net migration that would have increased individual freedoms instead of restricting them.


we shouldn't strike freedom of movement deals with undemocratic totalitarian regimes (they probably wouldn't want to anyway).
However we should offer refuge to whoever qualifies under our international obligations.


Theresa May.


Yeah right, I despise the British so much I became one, totally logical.
I don't despise anybody based on nationality. I don't have any particular affinity with those who want to hurt my friends, colleagues, and family for no good reason though.

In reply to Big Ger:


Unnecessarily critical of low-level civil servants. I think a better conclusion would be that when you put pressure on an organisation to make impossible numerical targets then people find creative ways of doing so which don't necessarily match the overall objective. You see this across all types of organisation, cushy or otherwise, state and private. The latest example from the private sector is Wells Fargo inventing bank accounts for people.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Agreed.



Agreed.


So tell me, when did, and what is the name of, the "huge administrative authoritarian state machine to harass people" Theresa May set up?


Did you have to surrender your ability to recognise a p!ss take as part of some ceremony when you became a Brit?

In reply to Big Ger:


ffs lad, have you not checked paragraph 16 sub section 4 xii of the UKC registration terms and conditions?

In reply to Big Ger:




So tell me, when did, and what is the name of, the "huge administrative authoritarian state machine to harass people" Theresa May set up?

It's called the Home Office.

In reply to RomTheBear:



LOL!! Really? I know May is old, but I don't think she was about in 1782.

"On 27 March 1782, the Home Office was formed by renaming the existing Southern Department, with all existing staff transferring. "

In reply to Big Ger:

In fact I think a simple answer to reduce net migration would have been to strike reciprocal free movement deals with more countries, such as Australia, Canada, or New Zealand. There is broad popular support for this in all these countries. Here is a solution to net migration that would have increased individual freedoms instead of restricting them.
>

I think Rom's idea has been tried before. You may be aware of it. Funnily enough it fell out of favour

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Australia_policy

In reply to Big Ger:


Yeah, sure, as if what it was in 1782 what is is now....
Unless you have noticed it underwent huge transformation under t mau( especially when uk a was scrapped.

It now has the power to put people in indefinite detention without trial, kick people out of the country with no right of appeal whatsoever, amongst other wide ranging powers.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Unless you haven't noticed it's not the same idea at all but I guess it may be too hard for you to make the distinction between freedom of movement between willing countries and racist immigration policies.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Morning Rom, glad to wake you up

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:
and so the unpleasantness continues - is it any wonder that people like my wife are anxious about what is to come?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-39138733


May-Apologists are of no helo at all

In reply to wercat:

>
And unpleasant attacks on junior staff continue it seems. Is it unreasonable that the NHS attempts carries out it's legal duty to make sure users of the service have the right to use it free at the point of charge?

What seems to to have happened inn this case is that a junior staff member was heavy handed and unpleasant in executing this job. Maybe you should give them a break and they should be better trained?

In reply to Postmanpat:
I hope you are not implying that I am not entirely polite when I encounter NHS staff, as I always am, having worked for a while in the Cumberland Infirmary.

The staff are responding to newly applied pressures, most likely ministerial, to do something neglected by the government in the past and for which there probably is not a system. Mind you, commenting on someone's colour being suspect is a bit more than being heavy handed.

In reply to wercat:

>
I have no doubt that you are very polite in your dealing with NHS staff.

But the media, and hence it's readers, has a habit of highlighting mistakes by junior staff as part of their attacks on government policy. The junior staff are effectively written off as collateral damage in the crossfire.

We should think up a name for this. I don't know....maybe....."fake news" ?

In reply to Postmanpat:

No, PP, you're missing the point, this has nothing to do with "junior staff", it's a result of policy.
it was totally predictable that this would happen if we start asking the NHS to check entitlement in a country without IDs.
It's just irrealistic to expect NHS staff to know all the intricacies of immigration status and public funds entitlement. Even trained home office officers often get it wrong.

What was I saying to you back in February ?
"I'm telling you what's going to happen: as soon as someone shows up with an odd accent or looking somewhat foreign they'll be ignored or placed the back of the queue."

Well it didn't take long to realise did it.

In reply to RomTheBear:
>
It's a result of poor implementation of policy, a policy shared by virtually every country in the world. You might as well be outraged by a check that people have paid to use their local climbing wall.

Anyway, I'm very worried that my grass is growing too quickly and I don't have a mower. So I am very busy watching it.

In reply to Postmanpat:

It's not poor implementation, the implementation is impossible without national IDs.

The NHS job should be to check that those who come in are entitled to use the service, but it's not their job to work out who is entitled or who is not, that should be done by the home office, they are the only one who can (sort of).

Yes others countries do it, but simply because they already have means to identify patients, in the UK there is virtually none.

For example, in France you register with the social security, they do all the checks, and you get a Heath card with a picture. From then on the only thing the hospital staff need to do is to swipe your card.
Unless we come up with a comparable system, which basically would be a system of based on a national ID, then we'll keep having issues with people who look or sound foreign being rejected whilst those who look and sound British will go unchecked.

As for my climbing wall, same thing, they have my name in a database with my picture and they can check.

In reply to RomTheBear:


You said May had, and I quote " set(ting) up a huge administrative authoritarian state machine to harass people who are esteemed colleagues friends, family members and productive members of society"

Now you claim that what you meant by that is that the home office under May " underwent huge transformation under t mau( especially when uk a was scrapped.It now has the power to put people in indefinite detention without trial, kick people out of the country with no right of appeal whatsoever, amongst other wide ranging powers".

"Indefinite detention" was introduced in the UK in 2004, under the Blair government, get a grip lad.

Your bitterness is blinding you to what you actually post.

In reply to Big Ger:

Yes that's exactly it.


Wrong. This was always possible in the uk. But the numbers exploded as soon as the home office was given even more powers under Teresa May.

In reply to Big Ger:

Actually bitterness is pretty normal when your close friends and family are being persecuted by a broken and authoritarian immigration system, far from blinding - it makes you very much aware of the reality of the system.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Part 4 of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act 2001 (ATCSA) allows for the indefinite detention of foreign nationals designated as terror suspects.


So the number under indefinite detention, was reasonably constant until May came to power and then "exploded"? Come on then, lets see your figures.

This, of course had nothing to do with the number of migrants trying to get into the UK, did it?

In reply to Big Ger:


This has nothing to do with the topic at hand I'm talking to you about immigration detention.

In reply to RomTheBear:


Let's go to the tape

"It now has the power to put people in indefinite detention without trial, kick people out of the country with no right of appeal whatsoever, amongst other wide ranging powers"

So, which act was enacted under Theresa May which made the "indefinite detention without trial" of immigrants legal then?

And what increase has been seen in the numbers of those held indefinitely?

In reply to Big Ger:

It always existed - since the 1970s.
Basically people can be put in administrative detention, even if they have commited no crime whatsoever, and there is no statutory time limit.
The use of this power has increased significant under Teresa May, about +20% between 2011 and 2015.

Now only that but we see more and more eu citizens being place in such detention, sometimes for minor things like simply a lost passport.

Stories of blatantly unfair deportation and treatment of immigrants are almost a daily occurrence now. There is no doubt in my mind that there is a political will to do everything to reduce net migration numbers, through every possible mean and without any regard for basic decency or fairness

In reply to RomTheBear:


So when you said that Theresa may had created it, you were....


You got these figures from?

Oh BTW, Theresa may has been PM since, when?

Let's go to teh tape, once more;

Now you claim that what you meant by that is that the home office under May " underwent huge transformation under t mau( especially when uk a was scrapped.It now has the power to put people in indefinite detention without trial, kick people out of the country with no right of appeal whatsoever, amongst other wide ranging powers".

I'll ask, yet again "So, which act was enacted under Theresa May which made the "indefinite detention without trial" of immigrants legal then?"


This, of course had nothing to do with the number of migrants trying to get into the UK, did it?

Please try being honest, it'll be a great new experience for you, you may even enjoy it.

In reply to Big Ger:


He's right. Average number of people in immigration detention during 2011 = 2667; average during 2015 = 3259. % growth 22%. Oddly, and worth mentioning here, the last figure available in December 2015 had dropped sharply back to 2607. I don't know why there is that drop


http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/immigration-de...

In reply to Ron Rees Davies:



What could the border agency know about the case that they couldn't or wouldn't disclose that would make it morally right for this women to be kept from her family?


What possible length of time looking after her parents would make it right that she can't come back to her family?


1. If it is the legally correct action any right minded human being would think the law is wrong.
2. I expect the law leaves some room for judgement. If that's true whoever's responsible for that judgement is a disgrace and/or is under pressure to get numbers down
3. the idea that because a government body has had time to think about something, they've probably done it right is laughable. (I work for one)

In reply to Bob Hughes:


So when did Theresa may initiate the laws that made this possible, as he claims?

In reply to Big Ger:

And does a 22% increase constitute an explosion?




Nit picking aside, it's no surprise that UK immigration is shambolic, many elements of the state are, and immigration is under a lot of pressure, has been for years and is underfunded like everything else.

In reply to Dr.S at work:
The reality is that immigration have an impossible job. Our economy demands huge migration levels to fill skill gaps and popularist politics needs constant pressure to keep numbers down to as low as possible alongside austerity based funding cuts that reduce staff and resource. This seems to have reached the point where at the edges only idiotic or draconian measures work. If I was in that service and could retire, I would...as its about to get a whole lot worse as the governement is in denial it needs to start training huge numbers of new staff right now to meet post brexit requirements. Experts are warning the government but little is happening.

I think people are just plain ignorant of what has happened in some sectors of the UK... in Universities non-British citizens now form 28% of academic posts... if you think of the speed this has risen we must be around half of all new appointments. This is accelerating as there is a demographic retirement bulge (with almost all brits) and added financial incentives to go before the early 2020s due to the way our pensions work in the background of austerity pay freezes (my pensionable salary is currently very much more than my actual salary and based on my pay in 2008 to 2010) and the very small proportion of UK citizens doing PhDs. These numbers parallel in other public sector and private sector professional classes (and most of the public sector has the same demographic and pension issues), as an example 25% of doctors in the NHS are non UK citizens. On minimum wage work, seasonal farm workers must be close to 100%; care and hotel work in some parts of the country not far behind. When May promises the british people to control our borders it is either expensive but pointless and meaningless (in terms of numbers changing) or the very unlikely alternative that alongside the extra expense she intends to inflict major economic damage or cripple vital state functions.

In reply to Offwidth:
I forget to say May can reduce overseas student numbers (still stupidly included in the immigration figures). Each one lost is in average at an annual cost of around £20k a year on the UK ecomomy ( it counts to the UK export market !).

In reply to Big Ger:

Administrative detention for immigration exists since the 1970, but the number of situations in which it can be used has increased as immigration laws have become more and more restrictive and the handling of immigration cases more and more authoritarian since UKBA was scrapped and became part of the home office.

Specifically the immigration Act 2014 removes the right of appeal to many immigration decisions. Making people vulnerable to being detained, without date of release, as the result of a decision by a caseworker, without any legal recourse possible other than on human rights grounds, because that is guaranteed by the ECHR.

Of course I expect that T May will want to exit the ECHR as well , so that she'll finally be able to kick out as many of the 3 million eu citizens she can without clogging up the courts.

In reply to RomTheBear:

Right, so in the light of;


Where does your claim of Theresa May's; "setting up a huge administrative authoritarian state machine to harass people who are esteemed colleagues friends, family members and productive members of society," now stand?

It's bollocks isn't it? Why not admit that you made this bullsh!t slur up? Go on, confession is good for the soul.

In reply to Big Ger:

Repeating the question when the answer has been given three times already just makes you look a bit thick.
Your only argument seems to be "it's bollocks". Classic BG.

If you can't see that the Home office has been given more and more power, with less and less legal accountability for their decisions, it's your problem, I can't really help you, but it's a reality. Just look at the immigration act 2014 and 2016. And by the way this is not limited to immigration.

In reply to RomTheBear:

I've just read the Act, and while I do not agree with your summation of it, I have to agree it was enacted by Theresa May, and apologise.