Garth Coates Solicitors, one of the UK’s most respected immigration and nationality law experts speak of the multi-million pound programme that was introduced by the Home Office to assist in tracking immigration, and its apparent shortcomings in regards to providing the essential valid migration and immigration figures that the programme was designed to.

The UK e-Borders Programme, the most expensive one of its kind ever to be launched in Britain cost an incredible £500 million to develop, taking a total of ten years to create. The news that this system has significantly failed to replace tracking methods already in place for the UK Border Control has caused outrage from taxpayers and concerns from government officials who object to the waste of time and resources this operation has taken.

The inability to provide valid results of how many immigrants are visiting the UK, whether to relocate or simply here visiting, and how many individuals are migrating leaves the Programme in uncertainty, especially as existing methods give a more accurate estimation of net migration for the Home Office. The UK e-Borders Programme (now the Border Systems Programme or BSP) was designed to monitor each individual entering and leaving the UK.

In a recent post from Alan Travis, The Guardian’s home affairs editor, he wrote that:

‘MPs on the PAC (Public Administration select Committee) had told the Home Office that they were so unimpressed by the estimates based on the survey that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the Home Office should move as quickly as possible to start using e-Borders data to measure immigration, emigration and net migration.’

‘But the Home Office said the Border System Programme, as it is now called, under which passengers have to supply their name, nationality, gender, date of birth and passport details, could not be used to replicate the questions asked during the in-depth survey.’

The issue here is that there is no way to differentiate between which of those visitors entering the UK were visiting short term or migrants with the intention of staying in Britain over a long term. This presents the problem of gaining adequate statistics for the UK Border Agency and Home Office.

As immigration law specialists, the team at Garth Coates Solicitors encounter hundreds of cases where their expert knowledge and resources assist immigrants entering the UK every day. With hearing the latest news, they feel as though the UK Border Control, Home Office and ministers should be investigating more efficient ways to implement more accurate monitoring methods in a bid to effectively track the flow of traffic entering and leaving the UK.

Garth Coates Solicitors can be visited at www.garthcoates.com for further information on all aspects of immigration assistance and nationality law.