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Minister unveils new detention facility
New expanded detention facilities for illegal immigrants facing removal from the UK were opened at Manchester Airport by Border and Immigration Minister Phil Woolas today.
Pennine House, a short term holding facility based at the city's airport can now hold up to 32 detainees awaiting flights out of the UK. This new expanded facility will help the UK Border Agency ensure the swift removal of individuals with no right to be in the country.
The refurbished facility, which has doubled in capacity, now includes a self-contained area for female or vulnerable detainees and improved living, eating and washing facilities, creating a secure facility fit for the 21st century.
Mr Woolas said:
"The Government will seek to remove anyone who is here illegally, and we make no apologies for being tough on illegal immigration.
"We will detect, detain and remove those who have no right to be here or who pose a threat to the UK, targeting the most harmful first.
"Anyone trying to get round our tough controls by tampering with their identity documents or lying about their reasons for coming here will be found out.
"This new facility will help us increase removals of those who have no right to remain in the UK."
The Chair of the Independent Monitoring Board, Anne Grange, also attended today's official opening, along with representatives from the UK Border Agency, Manchester Airport and detainee escort staff from security company G4S.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Removal case studies
The case studies below show the type of
people who are held at the Airport's holding facility.
4 November
A Chilean man arrived at Manchester Airport from
Madrid and sought entry to visit the UK for a week. Checks
revealed that he had been sentenced to four and a half months
imprisonment in the UK in 2006 for theft and that he was believed
to have a previous conviction for theft in the UK as well as
others in Chile and Germany. He initially claimed to own a fish
importing/exporting business in Chile and to be spending two
months in Madrid meeting clients, however when interviewed he
subsequently admitted to living and working illegally in Spain for
two years as he had no job in Chile. He was refused entry to the
UK and removed on 5 November.
6 November
A trucker from Atlanta in search of romance was
turned away by officers from the UK Border Agency.
The Chinese-born, American citizen arrived at Manchester Airport and during a routine passport check it became clear that his passport had been tampered with. It had been defaced with correction fluid and stamps underneath showed that the 29 year-old man had been refused entry on two previous occasions.
When asked why he had damaged his American passport, the man said he thought the stamps were 'ugly'.
Officers quizzed the man about his reasons for visiting the UK and he claimed he wanted to celebrate his cousin's birthday in Darlington.
When the UKBA officer made contact with the man's 'family' in County Durham, it became apparent that his 'cousin' was in fact a woman he'd met on the internet.
The trucker was detained and returned to Atlanta on Sunday 9 November.
7 November
A Pakistani woman accompanied by her daughter
arrived at Manchester Airport from Islamabad and sought entry to
the UK claming she wanted to visit her son, a student in Britain.
When questioned, her daughter stated her mother was coming to the
UK for medical treatment including physiotherapy. A search of
their bags found X-rays and medical documentation - the
woman's son denied she was coming for medical treatment but
was unable to explain his sister's statements or the presence
of medical documents. The pair were removed on 9 November.
Further info
* Children will not be housed at this facility.
* In 2007 the Government removed someone from the UK every eight minutes (63,140 including dependants).
* 13,210 failed asylum seekers (including voluntary returns) were removed in 2007/08.
* In the first six months of 2008, the UK Border Agency deported or removed nearly 2,500 foreign lawbreakers. This record performance is 22 per cent higher than for the same period in 2007, and nearly 140 per cent higher than in 2006.
* In the year to August 2008, the UK Border Agency's global network handled over 2.4m visa applications, nearly half a million of these were turned down because they failed our checks.
* The UK Border Agency has now enrolled over 3.3 million sets of fingerprints, detecting over 4,600 cases of identity swaps (as of October 2008).
* From April until the end of October 2008 over 600,000 freight vehicles were searched to check they were not harbouring illegal immigrants, and we stopped 15,912 individual attempts by people trying to cross the channel illegally.
* For the same period our officers seized in excess of 560 million cigarettes representing a potential loss of £100 million in tax revenue, £190 million worth of illegal drugs, and have taken over 4,400 dangerous weapons, including firearms, stun guns and hundreds of knives, off the streets.
* Over the last five years (2003-2007 inclusive), our international network of airline liaison officers has prevented nearly 210,000 people boarding planes without proper documents - that's around two jumbo jets a week.
* From April until October 2008 the pilot scheme for the Government's electronic borders system has issued more than 8,000 alerts on passengers travelling to and from the UK. This has led to more than 750 arrests for offences including murder, possession of firearms and drug smuggling.
* In 2007/08 around 7,000 illegal working operations were carried out, 2,855 suspected immigration offenders were arrested as a result.
* Since the introduction of new penalties for employers to combat illegal working in February 2008, 1,012 fines worth around £9.5 million have been issued (as of the end of October 2008).
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