Latest news with #illegalimmigrants
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Asylum seekers are using taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling habits: More than 6,000 migrants used government-issued cards loaded with £50 a week at betting shops and casinos in past year
Asylum seekers are using taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling habits. Pre-paid cards given out to pay for basics including food and clothing are being used in gambling venues such as bookmakers, amusement arcades and even casinos, Home Office data shows. In the last year, up to 6,537 asylum seekers have used the government-issued cards at least once for gambling. The shock figures were released under freedom of information laws to the PoliticsHome website. Last night they triggered calls for an immediate clampdown to prevent the abuse of taxpayers' money by asylum seekers, including many who entered the country illegally. The Home Office last night launched an inquiry into the scandal. A Home Office spokesman said: 'The Home Office have begun an investigation into the use of Aspen cards. 'The Home Office has a legal obligation to support asylum seekers, including any dependants, who would otherwise be destitute.' Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp described the 'shocking' figures as 'an insult to taxpayers'. 'These people have illegally entered this country without needing to – France is safe and no one needs to flee from there,' he said. 'The British taxpayer has put them up in hotels and now they slap us in the face by using the money they are given to fund gambling. These illegal immigrants clearly don't need the money they are given if they are squandering it at casinos and arcades. 'Labour has lost control of our borders with record numbers for illegal immigrants crossing the Channel this year. The number in asylum hotels has gone up since the election and now we learn of this insult to British taxpayers. 'Everyone illegally crossing the Channel should be immediately removed to their country of origin or a safe third country in order to deter these crossings.' So-called Aspen cards are issued to asylum seekers while they wait to have their claims dealt with – a process that can take months, or even years. Those in self-catered accommodation receive £49.18 on the card each week to pay for 'clothes and footwear, non-prescription medicines, travel, food, non-alcoholic drinks, toiletries, laundry, toilet paper and communications'. The cards are currently issued to around 80,000 individuals who are waiting for a decision on whether they have a valid claim to stay in the UK. Many are living in hotels at the taxpayers' expense. The Home Office is able to track where the cards are used but does not block payments for particular types of transaction. The figures reveal that significant numbers of asylum seekers are now using the cards to gamble. The Home Office figures break down how many asylum seekers attempted to use their cards in gambling venues each week. They do not record how many times each individual attempted to use their card in that week. They show that an average of 125 asylum seekers a week used their cards with 'gambling-related merchants'. Dozens used the cards every week, with 177 using them to gamble in Christmas week when many venues are closed. The figures peaked at 227 in one week at the end of November last year. The Aspen cards use a chip and pin system so cannot be used for contactless payments or online. A Home Office source insisted it was 'not possible' to use the cards to directly place a bet. However, the data is understood to include withdrawals made from cash machines inside venues such as amusement arcades and casinos – where gambling is the sole focus. Paul Bristow, Tory mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, suggested gambling by asylum seekers at the taxpayers' expense may even be fuelling the growth of the industry. He told PoliticsHome: 'Peterborough has seen a huge increase in the number of gambling establishments and gaming centres, and a huge increase in men who've arrived on small boats. 'It's not unusual to see the very same men in some of the establishments on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. There's something going on here. Questions need to be asked. It would be absolutely wrong if they were using money given to them by British taxpayers to waste on gambling.' Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice said: 'This revelation, coupled with migrants working illegally, shows that the Home Office is incapable of policing the illegal migrant population. This is a slap in the face to hardworking British taxpayers who are struggling to make ends meet.' The revelations are likely to fuel concerns about the explosion in small boat crossings under Labour. Around 20,000 people crossed the Channel illegally in the first half of this year – a rise of 50 per cent on the previous year. Public anger is already mounting over the policy of accommodating tens of thousands of asylum seekers in hotels across the country, with angry protests erupting in recent days in Epping, in Essex, Diss in Norfolk and Canary Wharf, in London. The Aspen cards were introduced to provide basic subsistence for asylum seekers who are not legally allowed to work or claim benefits in most cases. But ministers are increasingly concerned at evidence of illegal working by asylum seekers, which may allow some to treat their taxpayer-funded handouts as pin money. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a clampdown on illegal working this week following a string of reports about asylum seekers earning money in the gig economy with delivery firms such as Deliveroo and Just Eat. In some cases, delivery bikes bearing the firms' logos have been seen parked outside asylum hotels. Firms will be issued with data on the locations of asylum hotels and ordered to stop using workers who appear to have been operating from there. But experts question whether this will work. Emma Brooksbank, immigration partner at law firm Freeths, said the plan was likely to prove ineffective. 'It will not be difficult for illegal workers to bypass this restriction and avoid detection. Companies like these gig economy operators are largely unregulated, and as such the usual right to work penalties of £60,000 per illegal worker do not apply. They have no real incentive to clean up their act.'
Fox News
a day ago
- Politics
- Fox News
ICE detainers in top sanctuary city have skyrocketed under Trump compared to Biden's 4-year term: DHS
FIRST ON FOX: President Donald Trump's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released numbers on Wednesday showing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has already issued 400% more detainers on illegal immigrants in sanctuary city of New York than former President Joe Biden did during his entire term. The data shows that ICE has issued 6,025 arrest requests to transfer custody or detainers since Trump took office in January. DHS says that during Biden's entire presidency, he issued just 9,472 detainers in New York City. Despite the surge in ICE detainers, the department says that New York City has honored only a "handful" of the requests. "In just six months, ICE has issued over 6,000 detainers in NYC alone—that's a more than 400 percent increase in the number of detainers lodged under Biden," Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital in a statement. "When sanctuary politicians like Mayor Eric Adams ignore ICE detainers, they are protecting criminal illegal aliens at the expense of American citizens. These are barbaric criminals with prior convictions for rape, murder, drug trafficking, and instead of holding them for ICE, sanctuary politicians release them back into your communities," she continued." These reckless policies have deadly consequences. Just this week, two illegal aliens who entered our country and were released under President Biden shot and nearly killed a brave off-duty CBP officer. Both criminal illegal aliens had been arrested for violent crimes and released by the NYPD." The department also pointed to the "record number of assaults" that ICE officers are facing as they continue to carry out Trump's deportation agenda amid strong pushback from elected Democrats, some of whom have compared agents to Nazis. Assaults on ICE agents are up 830% since Trump took office, according to DHS, and the department said in the press release Wednesday that the violence is "largely driven" by anti-ICE rhetoric and sanctuary policies. New York City's sanctuary immigration policies catapulted to the forefront of the national conversation over the weekend when an off-duty border patrol officer was shot in the face by a man government officials say is an illegal immigrant. The alleged assailant, Dominican national Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, was caught by Border Patrol in April 2023 during the Biden administration and released into the United States. The incident comes two months after a Fox News Digital report found a high number of migrants committing thefts, assaults and drug crimes, as well as grand larceny incidents and sex crimes. According to the data, 3,219 migrants living in 48 shelters across the city were arrested a total of 4,884 times between Jan. 1, 2023 and Oct. 31, 2024.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump's immigration enforcement push results in skyrocketing arrests of criminal illegal aliens
The number of criminal illegal immigrants arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has soared during the Trump administration, authorities said Tuesday. Statistics vary from state-to-state, but ICE has arrested illegal immigrants convicted of various crimes, including murder, rape and other violent offenses, the agency said. Since Trump took office in January, ICE arrests in Maryland have jumped 290% and a staggering 470% in Virginia, the agency said. In South Carolina, arrests have more than tripled. In Michigan, ICE arrests have jumped 145% since Trump took office. Colorado and Wyoming have seen almost five times as many arrests compared to the same time period under former President Joe Biden. Across eight western states – Utah, Idaho, Nevada, Montana, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming and California – arrests of illegal immigrants each month since January have nearly tripled. In Chicago, ICE arrested three times as many illegal immigrants convicted of crimes during the first 150 days of the Trump administration compared to Biden's final 150 days in office, ICE said. Additionally, in the San Diego region, immigration arrests have increased 400% compared to this time last year. The arrests come at a time when jurisdictions like Los Angeles and other cities have demanded that ICE stop raids targeting criminal illegal immigrants. In addition, attacks on ICE personnel have increased 830% compared to 2024, Acting ICE director Todd Lyons told CBS' "Face the Nation" in an interview that aired Sunday. "I think the sharp increase in the rhetoric, especially from a lot of elected officials, that are shaming, if you will, or speaking out against [the] ICE law enforcement mission, is what's really increasing these attacks on officers," he said.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Fox News
Mother shares heartbreaking story of son's grisly death at hands of illegal aliens
A mother shared the heartbreaking details of how her son, a U.S. Marines veteran, was gunned down by illegal immigrants on their property in South Texas.
Fox News
2 days ago
- Politics
- Fox News
WATCH LIVE: Trump's promise hits Capitol Hill: Senate targets ‘criminal aliens' in sweeping security push
A Senate panel tackles the threat of criminal illegal immigrants—just days after a Border Patrol agent was shot in sanctuary city NYC by a suspect who slipped in under Biden.
