United Kingdom has said people-smuggling gangs, who aid illegal and irregular migration into the UK and its allied nations, will, henceforth, be treated as terrorists as part of a new sanction regime.
The announcement comes on the heels of a BBC report detailing the tactics of UK immigration scammers (recruitment agents), who scam foreign nationals applying to work in the UK.
UK’s Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced this at the Organised Immigration Crime Summit in London yesterday, saying the country had struck new agreements and plans with about 40 countries to smash ‘vile gangs’ by putting their entire model out of business, and securing the country’s borders on behalf of working people.
As part of the action, Starmer said the UK would freeze assets of those found guilty of engaging in the people smuggling business, ban them from travelling to Britain, and more importantly, put them behind bars ‘where they belong’.
He noted that already,18,000 social media accounts belonging to the perpetrators had been closed this year, disrupting the way smugglers promote their services.
His words: “Illegal migration is a massive driver of global insecurity. It undermines our ability to control who comes here. And that makes people angry.
‘’It makes me angry, frankly, because it is unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price, from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain.
“It’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.
“This government is introducing a tough new law to force all companies to carry out checks on right to work. These checks take just minutes to complete. So, they are not burdensome for business. And they can be done free of charge. So, there will be no excuses.
“Companies will have no ability to claim they didn’t know they had illegal workers. And failure to comply will result in fines of up to £60,000, prison terms of up to 5 years and the potential closure of their business,” Starmer added.
Urging world leaders to work together to stop criminal gangs as small boat crossings continue to rise, he said: “I simply don’t believe organised immigration crime cannot be tackled. We’ve got to combine resources, share intelligence and tactics, tackle the problem upstream at every step of the people smuggling journey, from North Africa and the Middle East to the high streets of our biggest cities.
“Look, to that end, we’ve already got to work. Begun to make progress since I came into office. The UK has re-set its entire approach to international collaboration.
“So, look, we must each take decisive action in our own countries to deal with this. Nobody can doubt that the people we serve want this issue sorted. But the truth is, we can only smash these gangs, once and for all if we work together.
“Because this evil trade exploits the cracks between our institutions, pits nations against one another. Profits from our inability at the political level to come together.”
