lack of enforcement leads to restrictions on liberty

The BBC:

The police are often “not interested, too busy or don’t know what to do” when illegal immigrants are reported, says the largest UK traffic warden provider.

National Car Parks said it reported the illegal migrants who attempted to get jobs with it, but most “walked away”.

This was not just because of the police response but also due to the “limited resources” for immigration officers.

MPs heard that ID checks were not robust enough nor enforced well and there are lots of “forged documents”.

The police have complained about a “routine” lack of enforcement with regard to when they inform the IND that suspected illegal immigrants are in the cells. At times the focus of the IND appears to have been the processing of asylum seekers, leaving less resources for dealing with illegal immigration.

 Gareth Crossman, policy director of human rights group Liberty, told the committee that biometric ID cards would not have a “significant effect” on the numbers of illegal workers in the UK.

“If the problem is in illegal working, and there are employers that do not care about the status of their employees, biometric ID will make no difference,” he said.

Seems a fair point, doesn’t it?

“It might make a difference for scrupulous employers who are being hoodwinked. But I don’t think that’s a significant problem,” he added.

On that I confess I’ve no idea whatsoever.

The Times on FOIA restrictions

[hat-tip: DVH]

Good article except for this bit:

Freedom of Information is tiptoeing away from us, back down the corridors of power, amid such a welter of arcane regulations that only the big news organisations have noticed.

Er… no, it was noticed by many others as soon as it was proposed.

The way to solve the ‘problem’ is to make available all government information unless releasing it would compromise national security.

ID card scheme the silver bullet for illegal immigration

Prime Minister Tony Blair in PMQs, Wednesday 28 March 2007:

The [UK Borders Bill] is in addition to a big investment in electronic borders, which will allow us to track the movements of people in and out of the country, but it is necessary to combine those measures for better border protection with the introduction of identity cards and a proper identity management system, because that is ultimately the only way of tracking illegal immigrants to this country and making sure that they can be deported.