The current British immigration policy under the conservative-liberal government aims to ‘limit non-EU economic migrants, …reduce inflow, [and] minimise abuse of all migration routes’ (Home Office, undated). In an integrating world with ever increasing trade, travel and migration, this, notably the aim to ‘reduce inflow’ seems like an absurd statement trying at turning back the clock, ignoring the factual and aiming at the impossible. It thus seems like a recipe for failure.

Meanwhile, the British immigration control system is subject to constant reforms, almost tossed about in recent years by politics and under constant critical scrutiny from left and right. In 2007, the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA) had been formed to take over from the previous Immigration and Nationality Directorate IND. Only one year later, BIA, UKvisas, then part of the Foreign Office, and some parts of HM Revenue and Customs were merged into a huge new apparatus, the UK Border Agency (UK BA). In 2011, its head, Brody Clark, was dismissed after a controversy between the Immigration Minister and the service over how to handle excessive controls at borders. Finally, in March 2012, UK BA was split up again into the UK BA and a new UK Border Force.

These ongoing institutional reforms, criticisms and changes of leadership are creating, as it seems, an atmosphere of uncertainty, adds to a mentality of siege and results in frustration of its staff. Even the immigration minister admits that ‘UKBA has been a troubled organisation since it was founded in 2008’ (Metro 2012), but probably for a lot longer. Paul O’Connor, national officer for the Home Office at the Public and Commercial Services Union admits that ‘morale was very low, due to a mixture of staff cuts and pay freezes. The UKBA was struggling to provide the service they would like to provide, he added’ (House of Commons 2012a).

This essay is just to give a flavour of the disarray UK migration policy, management and border control are in and the costs and delays, controversies and frustrations this causes on policy, business and NGO side.

 

Failing on its service responsibility

In April 2012, it was reported that UK BA missed its target for waiting times at passport controls at 23 out of 30 days (BBC 2012a). On one day, 30 April people were queuing for up to three hours at terminal 4. This was a repetition of similar problems experienced in 2011. Simultaneously, Mark Hammond, Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC 2012) expressed ‘serious concerns’ over how passengers were treated, notably ‘discrimination against passengers and the protection of their human rights’ at Gatwick airport, North terminal (also see Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration 2012). Ian Duncan Smith, conservative minister, when asked on TV (BBC1 2012) for his opinion on the severe delays at passport controls at Heathrow airport, 2 ½ hours in April, argued that this is not unusual as he was waiting for two hours and more in Washington. Typical in this instance was reference to the US and not, for instance, Germany or Sweden; this shows that the UK is not taking the other EU member states as point of reference and standards but rather a non-EU country on the other side of the Atlantic ocean.

This problem is due to two issues. On the one hand, the UK insists in maintaining passport controls of arrivals from the EU Schengen countries. This requires significant levels of staff. On the other hand, the government as part of their public spending cuts also cut staff of UK BA by almost 900. Thus, the problems are caused by what could be considered unnecessary controls, unnecessary because there is no evidence from other EU countries that this undermines security, whilst paradoxically reducing staffing levels.

Also in April, the computer system of the biometric residence permit system that was introduced four years ago, in 2009, temporarily collapsed. A lawyer of a leading UK law firm, Andrew Tingley, ‘said the collapse was “beyond farcical” because many applicants needed to have their permit dealt with on the same day’. He concluded, ‘the system that was introduced was not fit for purpose, …it was close to collapse a few weeks ago. It has now collapsed. It’s an absolute mess’ (BBC 2012b).

Some of these failures are said to have severe consequences for the UK as a business location. ‘Employers are saying they can’t access a reasonable immigration system and they’re considering moving abroad. They’ve come to the point now where they’re seriously considering not investing or working in the UK because they can’t access any reasonably competent system’ (Tingley on BBC 2012b). This implies that failing the service function of immigration control is not accidental but systematic and that it potentially has fundamental negative consequences for the UK as a whole.

 

Violating human rights standards

Only the following month, the Independent Monitoring Board, a statutory agency introduced by law, the Prison Act 1952 (Section 6) respectively the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 reported a serious breach of standards of immigration detention by the UK Border Agency. Notably, it was found that two women have been kept at Yarl’s Wood removal centre for two-and-a-half years. It was criticised that they were kept in detention ‘with no realistic prospect of deportation’ (BBC 2012c), and thus that ‘the UK Border Agency had breached standards’. It comes to the conclusion that ‘Yarl’s Wood was “not fulfilling its basic function”’, that “the financial costs of this failure, as well as the costs in terms of human suffering …are immense”’ (BBC 2012c).

Also the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, another statutory agency set out in Section 5A of the Prison Act 1952 in 2011 criticised that ‘too many pregnant women, who should only have been held in exceptional circumstances, were detained in the centre’ (CIP 2012: 6), that family members were separated and even held in different centres (: 12), which would amount to cruelty, that ‘detainees found it difficult to get advice about their cases’, that they had ‘insufficient contact with immigration staff’ and that ‘results of detention reviews were not consistently reported to detainees as required’ (: 5). This implies that the legal right to access to legal remedies was violated. The HM CIP also expressed concerns over holding ‘vulnerable detainees, including those with disabilities’ (: 6) in immigration detention.

These complaints add to numerous similar reports suggesting that UK BA constantly and systematically oversteps legal standards; this implies that enforcement is given priority which has detrimental effects on human rights of immigrants.

 

Alienating stakeholders

The government’s attempts to reduce immigration have alienated several stakeholders. For instance, the UK student immigration system and efforts to reducing students coming from abroad, the fees they bring in are considered crucial for the economic survival of the UK’s universities, are denounced ‘as being “chaotic” and a waste of universities’ time and money’ by university representatives. It is criticized that UKBA ‘regulations have now gone too far, affecting legitimate language schools and students as well as the bogus ones’ (House of Commons 2012b).

Also the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC 2012) complains about ’the problem of poor border management [that puts the UK’s] reputation and future prosperity at risk’, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (2012) ‘remain opposed to the immigration cap’ and the Royal College of Nursing (2012) ‘has expressed grave concerns about changes to UK immigration policy, which will see nursing staff from overseas being forced to leave Britain’.

Finally, the Tourism Alliance protests about negative impact on the industry and the signals the failure of the system is sending out to the world. Brigid Simmonds (Tourism Alliance 2012) expressed the tourism industry’s growing concerns; she complained about delays at entry controls that in demonstrate ‘cracks in the system’.

 

Un-intended effects

Despite politics aiming at tough enforcement the UK has one of the highest levels of an irregular migrant populations in the EU, 417 000-863 000 in 2008 (most recent estimate), up from 310,000-570,000 in 2001 (see Irregular Migration Net 2009). Beyond the attractiveness of the UK there are other explanations for this, (1) the ‘ratchet effect’ as observed in the US meaning that due to illiberal immigration restrictions and strict border controls those who make it into the country are less likely to leave again but rather overstay and/or stay longer, (2) the government’s notorious refusal to introduce a regularisation programme which successfully significantly reduced the level of irregular immigrants in many other EU countries, (3) the discrepancy between political rhetoric of tough enforcement aiming at pacifying the media and a reality of lack of resources and still relatively low levels of enforcement operations and (4) the liberal dilemma, meaning that human rights, employers rights and ethnic minority rights limit the power of enforcement agencies. But whilst (3) and (4) also apply to other EU countries (1) and (2) are specific to the UK and are thus more likely to explain the comparably high level of irregular immigration in the UK. Also lack of tolerance towards some deviation from the law, impractical immigration and employment regulations, low refugee recognition rates and changing legislation and the impact of the economic crisis that deprive formerly legal migrants of their status and drive them underground but not out of the country, as intended all contribute to this situation (see Düvell 2011).

 

References[1]

BBC (2012a), Waiting target for non-EEA visitors at Heathrow missed in April, 3/5/2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17937880.

BBC (2012b), UK Border Agency ID card system crashes, 3/5/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17943589

BBC (2012c), UK Border Agency criticised over Yarl’s Wood detention, News, 18/5/2012, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-18118155.

BBC1 (2012), Question time, 3/5/2012.

British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) (2012), We need to show the world that Britain is open for business, says BCC, Press Release, 4/5/12.

Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (2012), Inspection of Gatwick Airport North Terminal, http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Inspection-of-Gatwick-Airport-North-Terminal.pdf.

Düvell, Franck (2011), Paths into Irregularity: The Legal and Political Construction of Irregular Migration, European Journal for Migration and Law, 13(3): 275-295.

Equality and Human Rights Commission (ECRC) (2012), Press Releases, 10/05/12.

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (CIP) (2012), Report on an announced inspection of Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre, 4–8 July 2011, London: CIP, http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/hmipris/immigration-removal-centre-inspections/yarls-wood/yarls-wood-2011.pdf.

Home Office (undated), Passport and immigration, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/passports-and-immigration/.

House of Commons Home Affairs Committee (2012a), The work of the UK Border Agency and UK Border Force, 15/5/2012.

House of Commons, Public Accounts Committee (2012b), Immigration points – student routes, 14/5/2012.

Irregular Migration Net (2009), Stocks of irregular immigrants: estimates for United Kingdom, http://irregular-migration.net/typo3_upload/groups/31/3.Database_on_IrregMig/3.2.Stock_Tables/UnitedKingdom_Estimates_IrregularMigration_Nov09.pdf.

Metro (2012), UK Border Force to be spun away from UK Border Agency, 20/2/2012, http://www.metro.co.uk/news/890876-uk-border-force-to-be-spun-away-from-uk-border-agency#ixzz1vIop4HDO.

Recruitment and Employment Confederation (2012), Press Release, 4/4/12.

Royal College of Nursing (2012), Press Release, 29/3/12

Tourism Alliance (2010), Border control problems jeopardise government’s tourism plans, Press release, 9/5/2012.