Immigration Laws: Tough Overhaul Introduced

Illegal immigrants and foreign prisoners face tough new curbs on their rights of appeal under a new Government crackdown.

The Immigration Bill will see the grounds on which foreign nationals can lodge an appeal against deportation slashed from the current 17 to just four.

This is partly in response to the frustration successive home secretaries faced in their repeated attempts to deport the radical cleric Abu Qatada.

Qatada used human rights laws to outwit government lawyers for 12 years before Home Secretary Theresa May finally managed to deport him to Jordan in July.

The Bill, which is the centrepiece of the coalition's legislative programme this year, also includes moves to block illegal immigrants from opening bank accounts in the UK.

Banks will have to check against a database of known immigration offenders before opening accounts, and employers will face heavier fines if they employ staff here illegally.

Private landlords will have to check the status of their tenants to stop people with no right to live in the UK getting access to private rented housing.

And there will be new powers to check driving licence applicants are in the country legally.

Temporary migrants, such as overseas students, will also have to pay a levy on entering the UK to allow them access to free NHS care.

Immigration Minister Mark Harper said: "The Immigration Bill will stop migrants using public services to which they are not entitled, reduce the pull factors which encourage people to come to the UK and make it easier to remove people who should not be here.

"We will continue to welcome the brightest and best migrants who want to contribute to our economy and society and play by the rules but the law must be on the side of people who respect it, not those who break it."

Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti condemned the Bill as "nasty" and a "race relations nightmare waiting to happen".

She said: "After the racist van stunt, the Home Office again scrapes the barrel by turning landlords into immigration officers and scrapping appeal rights for the vulnerable.

"Once more, headline-grabbing gimmicks trump tackling departmental delays, and public fears are stoked instead of calmed by putting the house in order."

Maurice Wren, chief executive of the Refugee Council charity, added: "Requiring landlords and banks to check people's immigration status is simply unworkable.

"Landlords and bank staff are not immigration officials and the types of documentation carried by asylum seekers and refugees is varied and complex."

David Lloyd, a GP in Harrow, London, expressed concerns that the changes would mean doctors acting like Border Agency staff.

"There is an awful lot more paperwork involved so we have got to spend an awful lot more time checking on people at a time when they are at their most vulnerable," he told Sky News.

The National Landlords Association chief executive Richard Lambert added Sky News: "Existing referencing will pick up immigration issues anyway but if the Government wants to put something in place beyond that, the important thing is that it is simple and straight forward to use."

Mrs May and Prime Minister David Cameron want to reduce net migration - the difference between those arriving and those leaving - from non-EU countries to less than 100,000 before the next election in 2015.

The most recent official figures show a net flow of 176,000 migrants came to the UK in the year to December 2012, up from 153,000 in the year to September 2012, ending five consecutive quarters of decline.

Shadow immigration minister David Hanson said the Bill showed the Tories are "still failing on immigration" and that it lacked action to tackle some of the key areas.

"The number of foreign criminals deported has dropped by over 13% since the election, border checks have been cut with only half as many people stopped and illegal immigration has got worse," he said.

"Yet there seems to be nothing in the promised bill to tackle problems at border control, which is getting increasingly shambolic, nor deal with long delays in getting electronic checks in place, or the UKBA bureaucratic failings that have prevented foreign criminals being deported.

"Nor are they tackling exploitation in the labour market which raises greatest public concern."

:: Immigration is likely to be one of the key debates at the next General Election - and we'll be examining the issue on Sky News next week.

Immigration UK starts on Monday October 14, on Sky News TV, skynews.com , our mobile apps and Sky News for Ipad.