Watchdog questions if immigration debate is national security threat
The immigration debate risks “destabilising” the country, the Government’s terror laws watchdog warned, as he questioned whether the wave of unrest it is prompting should be considered a threat to national security.
Jonathan Hall said the riots had “huge ramifications” in Belfast. The violence follows recent conflict in Southampton and Southport fuelled by anger over migration.
It comes as the Government’s top immigration adviser said there was “effectively an open border” to the UK via Ireland amid questions over the use of the Common Travel Area (CTA) by asylum seekers.
Mr Hall told Radio Four’s Today programme: “I’m interested in the question of whether or not foreign nationality, particularly recent migrants, is becoming more relevant to the overall national security picture.
“Although it doesn’t appear this attack was a national security attack, it has had huge ramifications in Belfast, not least for people who happen to be black and brown, who it appears have been driven out of their houses.
“It’s extraordinarily destabilising.”
Meanwhile questions surround what is known about asylum seekers using the CTA to travel to the UK from Ireland amid fears the agreement is a “weakness” in the British border.
The man accused of carrying out the Belfast attack arrived in the city by travelling through Europe and across the Irish border before being granted asylum.
Hadi Alodid is understood to have travelled from Sudan to Paris and then flew to Dublin before travelling to Belfast by bus in February 2023.
He did not have a valid visa when he entered the UK.
Ireland is not part of the Schengen Area – Europe’s border-free travel zone – so travellers are required to show a valid passport or national ID card when entering.
This means he passed through France and Ireland without claiming asylum.
The Common Travel Area (CTA) – the arrangement between the United Kingdom and Ireland – gives citizens the right to travel freely between both countries.
Once in the Republic of Ireland, Alodid would have been able to travel to Northern Ireland without facing any routine immigration border checks.
When he arrived in Belfast, the Sudanese national claimed asylum and was granted refugee status and given five years’ leave to remain in the UK until 2028.
There are different types of leave to remain, and it is unclear which he had been granted.
There is no record of him ever being in the UK prior to 2023.
Madeleine Sumption, the interim head of the Migration Advisory Committee, said: “The border is effectively open.
“The Irish government does some spot checks south of the border, boarding buses and asking for people’s ID but broadly speaking, most people travel back and forth completely freely.”
She told the Press Association the “challenge” for the UK Government with the CTA is similar to the situation they face with migrants crossing from France.
“They’ve got people coming from a safe country, they would like to deter them from doing it.
“In theory, the UK could have an agreement with Ireland to send asylum seekers back. The challenge is that this cuts both ways. And the UK doesn’t want to receive asylum seekers who travel from the UK to the Republic of Ireland, whom the Irish government says are quite numerous, but they say that actually a lot of their asylum seekers who arrive in the UK, either on a visa or an unauthorised route, and then travel via the CTA to the Republic, so this is this is definitely not a one way flow, there is movement in both directions.
“If Ireland was going to make an agreement on this, if they were going to accept people from the UK, I would imagine they would want to be able to send people in the other direction, and the UK is not going to be very keen on that.”
The Conservative’s shadow home secretary Chris Philp told the Telegraph a “weakness in the Irish border is therefore also a weakness in the UK border”.
Dr Sumption said there was “no data on movements back and forth”.
Gaps in the published data mean it is not known how many asylum seekers are travelling via Ireland to the UK or in the opposite direction.
Although the number is anticipated to be relatively small compared to other forms of entry, like travelling across the Channel from France in boats or lorries.
Dr Sumption, who is also the director of the Migration Observatory at Oxford University, said: “If someone then goes on to claim asylum in the UK, the Home Office tracks data on how they originally arrived in the UK but the numbers are sufficiently small that the Home Office doesn’t publish them separately.
“So we know that 92% of people arrived either through illegal routes or on a visa, and then there’s a remaining 8% which is where they weren’t able to identify their route of entry.”
This could include migrants travelling via the CTA or those who were children born in the UK whose parents are asylum seekers, for example.
“We know from the data that (travelling via the CTA) is not one of the major ways that people come to the UK but we don’t have a specific figure among those who claim asylum.”
For those who do not claim asylum or come into contact with authorities, “there’s no way of tracking anything”, she added.
Dr Sumption said her understanding is that the Home Office holds the data on people who claim asylum in the UK after arriving via the CTA but “until yesterday, there was no particular demand for it to be published” and “it just wasn’t in the debate, until now”.