Illegal immigrants will be rounded-up by roaming prison vans

TOM HARPER
UK Daily Mail
Sunday January 13, 2008

Prison vans are to cruise the streets of Britain searching for illegal - immigrants.

The "mobile detention centres" will aim to catch recently arrived foreigners as they emerge from peoplesmuggling lorries.

Immigration officers will hold the suspects inside the vans until background checks are performed.

If they are found to be here illegally, they will be taken by police to a major detention centre in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, before being repatriated.

The sheer number of bogus arrivals has meant police have been too busy to do the job.

The first vans are due to be launched in Northamptonshire following a successful try-out in ports along the South Coast.

The vehicles were ordered by Immigration Minister Liam Byrne after the Government was embarrassed by two incidents last September.

Police caught 16 illegal Iraqi immigrants leaving a lorry in Flore, Northamptonshire, but, instead of alerting the authorities, told them to travel almost 100 miles to a detention centre in Croydon and sign on as asylum-seekers.

The previous week, five African men had been found in a lorry in Long Buckby, Northamptonshire.

On that occasion, the police actually gave them a lift to a railway station before asking them to catch a train to Croydon.

Northampton North MP Sally Keeble, who had raised the incidents with Mr Byrne, said: "They were stupid situations - no one would expect desperate people to travel halfway across the country to hand themselves in.

"These vans are a good idea and will help to take the pressure off local police and services."

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