LONDON: Illegal immigrants face being denied access to work, benefits and services under a strategy announced by British Home Secretary John Reid on Wednesday.
Designed to ?block the benefits of Britain? to those in the country illegally, the new measures focus on improving cooperation between government departments, police, local authorities and health care trusts, Reid said.
The home secretary said that the new enforcement drive was based on ?fairness and enforcing the rules? and would allow immigration officials progressively to deny work, benefits and services to those in Britain illegally.
Measures include a watch list of illegal immigrants to alert government agencies if someone applies for services to which they are not entitled and workplace enforcement teams to track down bosses employing people who should not be in the country.
Landlords could be fined up to 20,000 pounds for housing illegal immigrants in overcrowded flats.
Pilot schemes will be set up in three NHS Trusts to use government data to ensure migrants pay for care where required. Opponents said the measures would not help to encourage or enable illegal migrants return to their home countries.
The Joint Council for Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) called for the better regulation of immigrants who have been in the country for more than two years. ?It (the strategy) will force many onto the doorsteps of already stressed charities and churches, or into the arms of criminals facilitating forced labour,? said Habib Rahman, chief executive of the JCWI. Conservative Party home affairs spokesman David Davis branded the strategy a ?pathetic attempt? to grab headlines.
?John Reid is effectively giving up on trying to deport the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in this country.? reuters
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