British government lost hundreds of migrants from so-called 'secure' hotel

The British government has lost hundreds of migrants staying at supposedly “secure” hotels, many of whom have not been properly identified or even had their photographs and fingerprints taken.

“[T]he Home Office has failed over the past three years to move from a crisis response to having better systems and procedures in place and treating this as business as usual,” warned David Neal, former Provost Marshal of the Royal Military Police (RMP) and currently the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, in his latest Inspection Report, taking aim at the government department led by Home Secretary Priti Patel MP which has broad responsibility for border control, policing, and national security.

“Data, the lifeblood of decision-making, is inexcusably awful… Biometrics, such as taking fingerprints and photographs, are not always recorded,” Neal went on, pulling no punches.

“The Home Office told our inspectors that 227 migrants had absconded from secure hotels between September 2021 and January 2022, and not all had been biometrically enrolled. Over a five-week period alone, 57 migrants had absconded – two-thirds of whom had not had their fingerprints and photographs taken,” he said.

"Put simply, if we don’t have a record of people coming into the country, then we do not know who is threatened or who is threatening.”

The fact that illegal migrants being accommodated at taxpayers’ expense in hotels — already a highly controversial policy, given the eye-watering costs involved and the fact that some have intimidated young girls and even embarked on stabbing sprees in the communities landed with them — are going missing before they have been properly vetted and identified or even had biometric data that could be used to identify them further down the line obviously poses a grave threat to national security and public safety, given some could be terrorists and violent criminals.

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