Chris Philp

The Policing Minister was crowing about the Government’s action on small boats, but the truth is this: so far this year, the Government have allowed in 23,000 illegal immigrants across the channel—that is 52% up on last year; this year has been by far the worst ever; and numbers in asylum hotels are now higher than at the time of the election. This is a border security crisis, but it is also a public safety crisis, especially for women and girls. Many nationalities crossing—for example, Afghans—commit up to 20 times more sex offences than average; Louise Casey made that point in her report. Now we have press reporting on the huge scale of the crime committed by illegal immigrants housed in the Government’s own asylum hotels. The Sun found 339 charges in the last six months based on only half the hotels currently operated. The Mail on Sunday found 708 charges based on only a third of those hotels. Those crimes included multiple cases of rape, sexual assault, violence, theft and arson, including the case that the Minister referred to in Epping, where 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. Violent protest in response to those appalling crimes is never justified. The public, though, are rightly sick of this illegal immigrant crime wave. It has to end. Will the Minister commit now to doing the following things? First, will she record and publish the immigration status of all offenders? Secondly, will she close that asylum hotel in Epping? Thirdly, will she repeal the Human Rights Act for immigration matters? Finally, will she emulate Greece’s new approach, which started today, and deport all illegal immigrants on arrival from France without judicial process either back to their country of origin or to a safe third country? Will she give the House and the country those commitments?