Immigration crackdown on airline passengers

Moves to strengthen Britain's borders may see more passengers checked by immigration staff before they even get on a plane, under legislation being published today.

A leading immigration expert said that he expects the Government's UK Borders Bill to include plans to introduce more passport checks by British staff based overseas.

Similar schemes already operate on the Eurostar train service from France.

Checking that a traveller is allowed to visit the UK before they set off eliminates potential illegal immigrants from being able to claim asylum when they arrive in the country.

A new uniform for border control staff will also be officially launched today.

Keith Best, chief executive of the independent Immigration Advisory Service, said: "The Bill is about securing our borders overseas by looking at automated clearance systems and identifying risk applicants at posts overseas.

"This makes it even more important for overseas applicants to have access to independent competent legal advice."

Home Secretary John Reid said he wanted to expand overseas checks when he published his Home Office reform action plans in the summer - a move dubbed "exporting our borders".

The Bill is also expected to include other moves to strengthen border controls and remove incentives that encourage people to travel and work here illegally.

At a Westminster lunch yesterday, Mr Reid said the development of freedom and movement and migration on a massive scale has transformed the world in recent years, creating gigantic challenges for his department.

He said: "What we are trying to do is to cope with changes on an unprecedented level in a way that makes sense of that world, makes the most of the opportunities and controls most of the deficits.

"That's why tomorrow I will be bringing in new plans - not because we like another Bill or because it is some sort of ego trip to have another piece of legislation, but because we need to cope better with immigration and mass migration.

"Therefore, we will be tackling some of the evils that go with it - people trafficking. We will be bringing in some of the measures that we need to manage it - a greater degree of enforcement.

"And we will be bringing in the laws that allow us to more easily deal with those who come here and do not match their rights with their responsibilities, but get the rights and break our laws in serious ways - foreign prisoners who ought to be deported more easily.

"That's why we are bringing in these laws."

The Immigration and Nationality Directorate - much criticised in last year's foreign prisoners scandal - is to become an executive agency of the Home Office from April, initially as a shadow agency.

It will be known as the Border and Immigration Agency.

The new dark blue uniforms for staff are being piloted at Heathrow Terminal Three, Glasgow and Stansted airports and Poole seaport.

After further consultation with staff after a four week trial, the uniforms are due to be rolled out to all front line workers from the autumn, and will be in place by April 2009.

Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of NO2ID, which campaigns against the introduction of identity cards, said the Government was making a "devastating" mistake.

He said: "We're talking about people who contribute billions of pounds a year in tax to our economy being told they must be fingerprinted and recorded to live and work here.

"The Government is making a devastating mistake."

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne denied that the Bill was a "knee-jerk reaction" to the foreign prisoners problem.

Mr Byrne told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "This has been a very, very carefully constructed piece of legislation.

"What it allows us to do is presume that somebody will be automatically deported if they have committed a certain kind of offence.

"What that allows the Immigration Service to do is start working much, much earlier on an individual's case, safe in the knowledge of what the outcome is likely to be."

Mr Byrne defended proposals for new identity documents for foreign nationals.

"At the moment, there are up to 60 different documents which someone can show to prove their entitlement to be in Britain. That is much too complicated.

"This year, I am going to increase the sanctions for businesses who break the rules and employ people illegally.

"I think the very least I can do is make life easier for those businesses by giving them a failsafe, easy method to check whether people are here legally and whether they are who they say they are."

Copyrighty Press Association 2007