Following the latest border and immigration chaos exposed by the Independent Borders and Immigration Inspectorate, the Shadow Home Secretary is today announcing new checks.

·         Labour will introduce a new requirement where applicants for naturalisation and citizenship must produce criminal records disclosure documents from overseas, where these are available, to help prevent abuse.

·         Where documents are not available, efforts will be made to check an applicant’s criminal record in the country of nationality. The Disclosure and Barring Service already has such a model.

·         The Independent Chief Inspector for Borders and Immigration, John Vine, this week disclosed a case from 2013 where an applicant had previously disclosed they had stabbed someone to death before fleeing to the UK – however, the Home Office were unaware and granted citizenship anyway.

·         He also revealed that “no attempts were made to check an applicant’s criminal record in the country of nationality” in naturalisation applications.

·         With Labour’s change, the applicant identified by John Vine would have had to produce any available criminal records check or would be subject to a check in the home country.

·         More thorough checks will be helped by the 1,000 additional staff already announced by the Shadow Home Secretary, paid for through levying a small charge on non-visa visitors to the UK.

·         The Home Office are currently refusing to accept John Vine’s recommendation on foreign criminal records checks. http://icinspector.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2014-12-11-Home-Office-Response-to-ICI-Report-on-Nationality-Casework.pdf

Demanding action from Theresa May now – Labour calling for a review of citizenships approvals over the last 12 months to examine whether applicants concealed information

·         Labour are calling on the Home Secretary to instigate a rapid review of naturalisations in the last 12 months. This should include a review of whether citizenship can now be withdrawn from serious criminals and murderers who should not have been given it in the first place.

·         Though John Vine’s sample size was small (126 granted cases from 2013) he found some large abuses – including nearly a quarter of the cases not meeting the referee requirements – a requirement similar to counter signatories on passport applications.

·         He also found that in “a number of cases… an applicant had provided false or deliberately misleading information at earlier stages of the immigration process”.

·         The British Nationality Act 1981 allows for the deprivation of citizenship is the person “acquired their citizenship status through naturalisation or registration, and it was obtained by means of fraud, false representation or concealment of any material fact”.

Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper MP said:

“Theresa May tried to bury this report, but she can’t hide the systemic weaknesses and poor enforcement of this Government.

“After Bordersgate, the passport shambles, the failure to deport foreign criminals, the asylum backlog and ignoring bogus students, this latest failure shows the need for urgent changes.

“Simply abolishing the Borders Agency and bringing it into the Home Office hasn’t changed anything. Ministers are simply overseeing poor performance in closer proximity.

“Labour will have more borders staff the increase enforcement both at the border and in the UK to make sure the rules are upheld and people can have confidence in the system.”