Huge gaps in Britain’s borders were exposed last night as it was revealed Home Office officials have lost track of 600,000 foreign visitors.
Despite spending hundreds of millions of pounds improving checks on every arrival and departure, many have fallen off the radar, a damning report has revealed. Ministers reintroduced checks at the border in April 2015 to verify more stringently if visitors leave when their visas expire.
Home Office does not know if 600,000 foreign visitors went home https://t.co/o2PGVF0BYV pic.twitter.com/f2Acw5DYcJ
— Will Corry (@slievemore) March 29, 2018
They insisted that knowing who is leaving Britain was vital for counting the number of immigrants in the country and fighting crime and terrorism.
And the Home Office claimed the flagship border management scheme would provide the most comprehensive picture ever of whether those who entered the UK left when they were supposed to.
But David Bolt, the independent chief inspector of Borders and Immigration, found the authorities had no record of whether more than 600,000 overseas nationals had departed. It means many could be living unlawfully in the UK.
No evidence of departure for 601,222
Last August there were about 10million individuals on a Home Office system whose last period of leave to be in the UK expired in the preceding two years. Of those, the database contained no evidence of departure for 601,222.
This figure included 513,088 ‘non-visa nationals’ – citizens from non-EU countries where there was no requirement to obtain a visa prior to travelling to the UK.
The remaining 88,134 individuals were ‘visa nationals’, those from outside the EU who had to obtain a visa prior to coming to Britain.
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