UK earmarks £33m to dismantle human trafficking networks, deport migrants overstaying visas

*The British Government explains reasons migrants who overstay their visas will be removed from the country, as it budgets £33 million to disrupt people-smuggling networks and boost prosecutions with prosecutors worldwide

Gbenga Kayode | ConsumerConnect

Citing the extant visa system is apparently exploited as a “backdoor route” to permanent residency in the United Kingdom (UK), the British Government has said migrants, who overstay their visas will be removed from the country.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who stated this noted that a recent investigation revealed such migrant make up nearly 40 percent of all asylum claimants in the UK, agency report said.

The Home Office also said about 40,000 people, who migrated to Britain from abroad as students, workers, or visitors in 2024 all sought asylum.

It was learnt that about a quarter, 10,000 people, had lived in taxpayer-funded hotels or other government-funded accommodations despite entering the country with a visa that suggested they would not need benefits or had enough money to cover living costs.

The development has raised fears that the current visa system is being exploited as a backdoor route to permanent UK residency.

Home Secretary Cooper has ordered officials to investigate this, report noted.

Speaking on the matter, Border Security Minister Angela Eagle told Times Radio Monday, March 31: “We inherited the system … with a 70 percent fall in any kind of processing with 100,000 people in dispersal accommodation or hotels who weren’t even being processed by the previous government.”

Ms. Eagle stated: “When they came in on a visa they actually told us that they had the means to exist in the country without relying on public funds.”

In regard to whether people who came to Britain on a visa would be taken out of tax-payer funded hotels, Ms Eagle said: “They will certainly, and if they’re overstaying they’ll be removed from the country.”

The development is said to have evolved as British Prime Minister (PM) Sir Keir Starmer Monday hosted a summit, in London, with Ministers from 40 countries, including the United States, China, Vietnam, Iraq, Italy and Albania, to discuss illegal immigration.

PM Starmer would call for them to work together to stop people-smuggling gangs in the same way they would terrorists.

Likewise, Ministers and enforcement staff were expected to discuss international cooperation on migration, as well as supply routes, criminal finances, and online adverts for people smuggling during the meeting.

Officials from social media companies Meta, X and TikTok would also join discussions on how to crack down on the online promotion of irregular migration.

UK earmarks £33m to tackle people-smuggling networks, boost prosecutions

Meanwhile, the UK Government has said £33million will be spent to disrupt people-smuggling networks and boost prosecutions, including paying foreign prosecutors to hunt people smugglers across the world.

In his opening address at the summit, PM Starmer said: “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’s unfair on ordinary working people who pay the price, from the cost of hotels to our public services struggling under the strain.

The British Prime Minister also stated: “And it’s unfair on the illegal migrants themselves, because these are vulnerable people being ruthlessly exploited by vile gangs.

“We must each take decisive action in our own countries to deal with them.”