MP calls for crackdown on 'impossible to manage' illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is becoming "impossible to manage", an MP has warned – as she urged ministers to regain control of Britain's borders.
Stourbridge MP Suzanne Webb said the huge rise in asylum seekers was the number one area of concern for her constituents.
She said she was being "driven mad" by human rights lawyers blocking the deportation of illegal immigrants – many of whom were "coming here for economic reasons" and ended up involved in crime.
Ms Webb said: "We have thousands of economic migrants housed in hotels across the country. It is a huge expense and it is becoming impossible to manage.
"Migrants – often young men – continue to pay thousands for a place in a boat to cross the Channel from France. They are not fleeing danger.
"They wish to come to this country to find work. Some even end up in criminal activity or are vulnerable and are exploited. This needs to end."
Ms Webb said that while she was in favour of "modest net immigration" and offering support to refugees, the numbers coming into the UK had "not been modest for many years".
"Unprecedented numbers are claiming to be modern slaves when in fact they are economic migrants coming from safe countries," she added.
"We cannot accept anyone jumping the queue and making fabricated claims. We must bear down on the asylum backlog and end the protracted appeal process.
"There is now a whole industry of lawyers, pressure groups, charities and organisations supporting those seeking asylum. If the Government announces a new initiative – these people are straight off to the courts to stop it.
"It drives my constituents mad and it drives me mad. Only root and branch changes in the law are going to stop this."
The Conservative MP has called for amendments to the Modern Slavery Act and for Britain to leave the European Court of Human Rights and develop its own human rights legislation.
"As a beacon of democracy for centuries that has fought tyrants a plenty, we do not need others to tell us what is fair and right," she said.
"We can do this now we have left the European Union. Quite rightly the focus has been on other pressing matters like the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
"But we need to look closely now on how we regain in practice, not in theory, full control of our borders."
