Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp has raised an urgent question in Parliament today, characterising illegal immigration as both "a national emergency" and "a public safety crisis" that particularly endangers women and girls.
He cited specific statistics about crime rates among different nationalities entering the UK, stating that Afghan nationals have been found to commit sexual offences at rates up to twenty times higher than the national average.
Philp asked Policing Minister Diana Johnson: "This is not just a border security crisis it is also a public safety crisis, especially for women and girls. Many nationalities are crossing the border; for example, Afghans have been found to commit up to 20 times more sex offences than the average. Louise Casey highlighted this in her report.
"Now, the press is reporting on the huge scale of crime committed by illegal immigrants housed in Government-run asylum hotels.
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|The Shadow Home Secretary declared it a "national emergency"
"The Sun found 339 charges in the last six months and that’s based on only half of the hotels currently in operation.
"The Mail on Sunday uncovered 708 charges based on just a third of those hotels. These crimes include multiple cases of rape, sexual assault, violence, theft, and arson.
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"In Epping, a 38-year-old Ethiopian man has been charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. An illegal immigrant in Oxford has been convicted of raping a 20-year-old woman in a churchyard. A Sudanese man was convicted of strangling and attempting to rape a woman in a nightclub toilet in Wakefield.
"Now, violent protest in response to these appalling crimes is never justified. However, the public are rightly sick of this illegal immigrant crime wave. It has to end.
"So, in her response, will she now commit to doing the following: record and publish the immigration status of all offenders, close the asylum hotel in Epping, repeal the Human Rights Act for immigration matters, and finally, emulate Greece’s new approach which began today by deporting all illegal immigrants upon arrival from France, without judicial process, either back to their country of origin or to a safe third country?
"Will she give this House, and the country, those commitments?"
The Policing Minister responded: "Any allegation of crime or sexual assault is incredibly serious, including those involving individuals in the asylum system, and it must be treated as such by the authorities and this Government.
"I must say to the Shadow Home Secretary that I regret the tone he is taking on such a serious and important matter. I would also gently remind him to look at his record on this issue, and that of the party opposite.
"At their peak, over 400 asylum hotels were in operation, housing more than 50,000 people at a cost of almost £9million per day. Forced returns were down 50 per cent compared to 2010. Returns of foreign national offenders had fallen by 1,000. Criminal smuggling gangs were able to exploit our weak border security.
"There was no proper management of the public safety risks posed by individual asylum seekers."
Government officials do not routinely publish statistics regarding crimes committed by asylum seekers, and immigration status rarely appears in police reports, creating challenges for comprehensive assessment of migrant-related criminality.
The revelations emerge alongside reports of a covert Government programme to relocate 18,500 Afghan nationals to Britain at an estimated £7billion cost.
A super-injunction prevented parliamentary and public scrutiny of this operation for nearly two years, following an official leak that exposed sensitive information about Afghan nationals.
The leak included some applicants whose asylum claims had been rejected due to criminal records.