Little effort is made to track down illegal immigrants who lose touch with the authorities in Britain

BBC News:

David Roberts, of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND), told MPs there was little point in hunting individuals who overstayed their visas.

He said resources were better targeted instead on raiding firms which employed illegal workers.

He also said the IND had beaten targets for removing illegal immigrants.

Mr Roberts, who is head of removals at the directorate, said he did not "have the faintest idea" how many illegal immigrants there were in the UK, although he was aware of estimates suggesting it was about 400,000.

He also admitted he did not know how many people had been told to leave the country.

"In terms of the number of letters sent to people who have been refused permission to stay here, I simply wasn't able to get that information," he told the Commons home affairs committee.

The situation was branded "amazing" and a "mockery of the immigration control system" by Labour MP David Winnick.

Mr Roberts said he could "understand the public's frustration" but the system would be tightened up when new "electronic borders" came into effect.

The IND's efforts were on removing failed asylum seekers and on mounting "targeted" and "high profile" raids on firms employing illegal immigrants.

"We are making huge efforts to remove them, but not on the basis of tracing individuals," Mr Roberts told the home affairs select committee.

He added: "There was a time, quite a few years ago, when I was an immigration officer, when indeed we knocked on lots of doors, following up lots of individual cases.

"And it came as no surprise that none of those individuals were at the addresses we had for them."

He said a "far more sophisticated, intelligence-led approach" was now used to find people who had overstayed their visas and were working illegally.

But unless they posed a "risk to national security," he could not accept pursuing individuals was an "effective strategy", he told the committee.

Committee chairman John Denham asked what a worried constituent ordered to leave the country should be advised to do.

"I get the impression the correct answer for me to give would be 'not very much, they don't track individuals. I wouldn't worry about it'," said Mr Denham.

Mr Roberts replied that the IND did a lot of operations targeted at where people work and kept in contact with people "as part of a reporting regime".

But he added: "If the committee concludes that we should be tracking individuals as part of its inquiry then that presents a series of challenges to us, to act on that recommendation in relation to the internal controls we have in the UK."

He said the IND had carried out more than 3,500 raids on companies last year.

And although this had only resulted in 293 successful prosecutions, it was expelling more than 1,000 illegal immigrants per month - which he said was well in excess of its target.

He said the UK's illegal immigration problem, which according to one estimate was about 0.7% of the population, was small compared to the United States, where they made up "7 or 8%" of the population.

But he admitted public confidence in the immigration system was fragile.

"Not having public confidence and allowing perceptions of a lack of enforcement I think is a huge challenge for us that we need to address," he told MPs.

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