Home Secretary Suella Braverman has announced a crackdown on “crooked” lawyers who help illegal migrants game the British asylum system, saying that such unscrupulous attorneys will face “life sentences”.
In the wake of reports that pro-mass migration lawyers coached illegals on how to fraudulently increase their chances of being granted asylum, including making up fake backstories of horrors in their homelands to even making up false claims of being homosexual and leaving their country over fears of persecution, Home Secretary Suella Braverman said that the government has created a new taskforce to crackdown on such activities.
“Crooked immigration lawyers must be rooted out and brought to justice,” Braverman said per The Telegraph. “While the majority of lawyers act with integrity, we know that some are lying to help illegal migrants game the system. It is not right or fair on those who play by the rules.
“The British people want us to put an end to illegal migration – I am determined to crack down on these immoral lawyers and stop the boats.”
Under the Immigration Act 1971, a maximum sentence of life in jail is levied against those who are found to have engaged in “assisting unlawful immigration to the UK”. However, this has rarely been enforced, with just five lawyers being prosecuted under the statute last year and just seven in 2021.
It is also the case that “life sentences” in Britain rarely mean that convicts will actually spend the rest of their lives in prison, with most being released early on parole after serving just 10-15 years behind bars.
Lawyers Caught Telling Illegal Migrants to Fabricate Horror Backstories, Fake Medical Records, or Pretend to Be Gay to Gain Asylumhttps://t.co/rMPg1ci3fD
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) July 26, 2023
The crackdown from the government followed a report last month that revealed that several high-profile immigration attorneys had advised an undercover reporter from the Daily Mail on the best means of defrauding the asylum system.
One lawyer is reported as having told the undercover journalist that he would help him concoct a fake backstory with tales of woe, such as being subjected to violence, sexual abuse, slave labour, imprisonment, and death threats and was forced to flee to the United Kingdom.
The lawyer went on to say that he could obtain a doctor’s note and a prescription for anti-depressants in order to corroborate his false claims of trauma. Meanwhile, another lawyer was caught advising that pretending to be gay would help make up the “fine ingredients of an asylum case”.
The announcement from Braverman on Monday comes as the government is set to also increase penalties for those caught employing illegal migrants by 300 per cent from £15,000 to £45,000 per illegal and up to £60,000 for repeated offences. In addition, the government is also preparing to increase the fines for landlords who rent to illegals, to £5,000 per lodger and £10,000 per tenant. Repeat offences will see penalties of £10,000 per lodger and £20,000 per tenant levied against landlords.
Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick told the Telegraph that fines should be “prohibitively expensive” in order to discourage the enabling of illegal immigration, saying: “Promising illegal migrants that they can easily work and live in the UK is one of the many lies that people smugglers tell to persuade migrants to make the small boat crossings,” he says.
“The minority of unscrupulous landlords and employers who allow illegal working and renting are therefore enabling the business model of the people smugglers and are complicit in the harm the small boats crisis is causing communities in the UK.”
"We are seeing heightened levels of criminality when related to the people who’ve come on boats, related to drug dealing, exploitation, prostitution" -- strident rhetoric, but will the government actually do anything? https://t.co/Qo8i8bQZA4
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) April 27, 2023
