150,000 foreign nationals staying on after visas expire

Immigration backlog: New warning from watchdog

Immigration minister Damian Green has pledged to improve '

The UK Border Agency has no "clear strategy" for dealing with a group of more than 150,000 foreign nationals staying on after visas expire, the borders and immigration inspector says.

John Vine said the group, typically foreign students, is growing in number.

His report warned that immigration officers did not know how many of those told to leave the UK had actually left.

Immigration minister Damian Green blamed the last government - but Labour said the report was damning.

The latest report from the inspector focuses on a previously unknown problem in the UKBA, concerning people from outside Europe who have deadlines to leave the UK.

Many of these people are students and if they do not leave when told to do so, they are added to the "migration refusal pool" (MRP).

'More pro-active'
"There are over 150,000 cases nationally of migrants who have been refused an extension of stay in the UK," said Mr Vine.

"The Agency does not know how many of these individuals have left the country or are waiting to be removed.

"I also saw no evidence that there is a clear plan in place for the Agency to deal with this stream of work to ensure this does not become another backlog.

"I believe it can and must do more to demonstrate it is dealing with this issue in a more proactive manner."

The report said the number of MRP cases had grown from 153,000 in October of last year to almost 160,000 by mid-December.

Mr Vine said: "The Agency needs much more effective planning in place to deal with this stream of work in order to ensure it removes individuals still in the UK who have no right to be here, while setting out clear performance targets to manage these cases much more effectively."

Immigration Minister Damian Green said "Under the last government there was no effective strategy in place to ensure migrants left at the end of their time in the UK. The UK Border Agency is now working through a group of potential over-stayers to identify those who have not left.

"This includes checking passenger records using our e-borders database which now covers all flights outside Europe.

"This summer the UKBA launched a UK-wide operation to remove over-stayers and we have already seen 1,800 removals since the campaign started."

'Damning conclusion'
But shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the coalition was "failing on illegal immigration."

"The damning conclusion from the government's own immigration inspector has concluded that the government is giving a very low priority to finding and removing people who have been refused permission to stay.

"We've had the fiasco of the border scandal, where the Home Secretary has admitted she doesn't know how many people came in without checks. We now have huge queues at our airports because of poor management and the cuts to nearly 900 UK Border Force staff."


Source:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18715036

If you were aware or suspicious that someone in the filipino community was staying in the UK after their visa had expired, what would you do? Report it? Or just think it's the UKBA's problem?

So if someone deliberately stayed in the UK after the expiry date of their visa and had no intention of applying for an extension or new visa, what would you do? Report it? Or let it slide?

I'm really interested in what you guys think about this scenario, both british and filipino.

It's a tough question to answer.
As for me it would depend on the circumstances and on the person

I've had two experiences of being in that position.
One case related to a lady who was here on a visit visa, got married (with by the way approval from the Home Office via COA) then thought she could stay on here because she was married to a Brit.
Not going to bore everyone with all the details but I really tried hard to explain to both her and her husband everything she must do to be legal. Both refused and refused to listen. Then she received a letter saying she must leave UK and re-apply for a spouse visa.
Whatever I told them they ignored, and even approached their MP to intervene.

Result was she received a final warning to leave UK by October 15th voluntarily and paying her own airfare or she would be deported and banned from returning for 5 years.
The husband lost his job, she had no money. I booked her ticket and my wife gave her some money to live on when she arrived.

She remains in the Philippines. My wife still has a contact to her.
The husband somehow blames me and we have had no contact since his wife left. He's a loser anyway in my book.

At no time did I take any action to report what I knew to be incorrect.

The other case I became involved with was rather complicated and very different.
Again it was a lady. She had a husband in Philippines who she was supporting with medical treatment.
When her visa expired I discovered she was actually living with her new British boyfriend and had no intention of going back home.

I tried to advise and help her but she would not listen to me and in fact got very hostile.
She said she needed to stay and get money to support her husband.

I was really torn as to what I should do. Eventually I contacted her family in the Philippines and revealed everything to them and begged them to advise her. To say they were shocked was an understatement. They had received no contact and no money for at least 3 months.

The lady moved away with her boyfriend. Her husband in Phil passed away.
I have no idea where she is or what she's doing.

Her family in the Philippines do not contact me anymore.

Once you become entangled in such issues, it can become a mess.

There is one other case I know about.
It concerns a British guy who got scammed into a marriage, and scammed out of all his money. He was also treated very badly.
Anyway, he eventually divorced this woman and promptly informed the UKBA. She had only FLR.

I know he informed them at least a further 2 or 3 times stating she was still in UK that her FLR was expired and even giving her address and employer details.
He also informed the employer, who promptly fired her.

Again and again UKBA did nothing.

Now, following some kind of investigation in the local area office it seems some action has finally been taken.
The guy has received a message from his ex-wife that she was arrested and deported, and has returned to a miserable life in Philippines.........and it is all his fault!

He has closure at last on a real bad part of his life. But not through the correct procedure of UKBA

I'm pretty sure some members here will know this person's story.

Yes that's him.

Here's a news item that coincided with her removal after a long long time.


http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/immigrant-number-in-hampshire-not-known-1-4025045

At least he has some closure on a damaging event.

150,000 unreported and they don't know what to do... and here we are going through the proper channel and we're the ones being penalized... crazy!

well, I sent her an email about my ILR.. the same email I sent to my local MP... didn't even get an auto reply.. b***ch!

ahhh.. yes, i still live in an ideal world that says public service means serving the public regardless of political affiliations.. i thought such things only happen in the philippines..