Asylum slackers
NOT before time, the Government has pledged to speed up the asylum appeals process and the expulsion of those whose claims fail.
With 50,000 cases pending and courts taking a year to hear some appeals, the urgency could hardly be clearer.
We hope the overhaul succeeds, but why did we have to wait so long?
It shouldn’t have taken dire Government poll ratings, a court ruling against the use of an Epping hotel for asylum seekers, and increasing anti-migrant protests for our leaders to act.
The new panel will only work if the adjudicators are truly independent and rigorous, rather than accepting ludicrous claims because that will clear the backlog or fit their political views.
The Sun has highlighted two cases where immigration judges who refused to deport foreign criminals had previously volunteered for a pro-migrant lawyer society.
Even if the panel does reject bogus claims, the Government will still have an army of left-wing lawyers trying to misuse the European Convention on Human Rights to prevent expulsions.
In the meantime, it is outrageous that taxpayers pay accommodation and benefits to failed asylum seekers for months while their home countries delay taking them back.
Visa sanctions should be imposed immediately on uncooperative nations like Egypt, Lebanon, Guinea and Burkina Faso until they speed up their paperwork.
Nations who delay taking back their failed asylum seekers should be sanctioned immediatelyAFP
Flops & robbers
THE plague of pilfering suffered by shops – and the abject failure to deal with it – are laid bare in new figures which show almost 800 shoplifting cases A DAY went unsolved last year.
While law-abiding customers struggle to afford the basics, crooks are stealing with impunity knowing police will do nothing about it, except perhaps investigate shopkeepers who dare to call these thieving scumbags what they are.
“No suspect identified” has become the routine excuse for dismissing these brazen thefts as unsolvable.
Really?
With many such crimes witnessed or captured on CCTV, it is clearer than ever that police chiefs have surrendered to this crime epidemic.
Be-trade?
THE Government was quick to take credit for a trade deal with America.
So how come hundreds of British products are now being hit with fresh tariffs of up to 25 per cent?
Has the US gone back on its agreement?
Did the British negotiators not read the small print?
Or did the Government sugar-coat a deal that wasn’t as good as they pretended?
Hundreds of millions of pounds and many British jobs could depend on the answer.
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