Asylum seekers ‘may very well be fitted with digital tags’

The Home Office is reportedly contemplating becoming asylum seekers arriving within the UK by way of unauthorised means – reminiscent of small boats crossing the English Channel – with digital monitoring tags.

A nationwide newspaper mentioned officers are mulling over the concept as a option to stop migrants who can’t be housed in restricted detention websites from absconding.  The Illegal Migration Act locations a authorized obligation on the Government to detain and take away these arriving within the UK illegally, both to Rwanda or one other “safe” third nation.

However, as areas in Home Office lodging are in brief provide, officers have been tasked with a “deep dive” into alternate options, in accordance with the newspaper.   While the popular answer is to extend the variety of detention locations, digital tagging has been mooted, as has reducing off monetary allowances to somebody who fails to report often to the Home Office, the Times cited a supply from the division as saying.

A supply reportedly informed The paper: “Tagging has always been something that the Home Office has been keen on and is the preferred option to withdrawing financial support, which would be legally difficult as migrants would be at risk of being left destitute.”

Asked whether or not tagging is into consideration, a supply near Home Secretary Suella Braverman mentioned: “We already do it.”

Home Office information this week confirmed Channel crossings topped 19,000 for the yr to date, regardless of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge that he’ll “stop the boats”.

The asylum backlog has soared to a document excessive, with greater than 175,000 folks ready for an preliminary determination on an asylum utility on the finish of June, with the invoice for the taxpayer nearly doubling in a yr to just about £4 billion.