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Immigration Lawyer Ivon Sampson slammed Keir Starmer’s Labour Party’s latest proposals for dealing with the migrant smuggling gangs claiming they haven’t thought it through. Appearing on Nana Akua’s show on GB News on Sunday August 3 he said: “It all seems like another announcement by the by the government, without thinking through carefully how they (are) actually going to prosecute. Even the smashing of the criminal gangs – it has been an abysmal failure.
“And you have to remember that these gangs are not (the) organisers we might think. A soon as one is shut down, there’ll be another one popping up. Because so long as there’s profits to be made in this business, and as long as there’s a flow of customers, you’re going to have continued supply from the gang members. So I’m afraid they’ll be chasing their own tail with regard to stopping it, because it just will not happen.”
Quizzed about Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s plan to prosecute those putting the people on the small boats he pointed out a flaw.
“Again, it’s about trying to find out who’s responsible. You’ve got to prosecute the right person, the mind behind the plan. And they’re so far removed from the action on the water that you’re just not going to get (to them).
“It’s just the home office not really thinking through what the practical realities of actually prosecuting or using these new powers they bring into law.
“It’s ill thought out…The only way you’re going to stop this terrible trade is to stop the demand. And the only way going to stop the demand is if I, as a channel crossing asylum seeker, know that I’m going to be removed when I get to the UK.
“If I know that I’m going to be removed, sent back to my own country, I will not spend thousands of dollars paying these traffickers.
“The fact is, we’re not removing people. We’re not sending people back to where they come from, the failed asylum seekers. And so the trade will continue,” he pointed out.
“If we do put them in prison, we’ve got to pay for that privilege and we’ve already got overcrowded prisons as Ii is. So I don’t think it’s a successful policy. It’s not going to work. The stop, the boats policy didn’t work. The smash the gang policy didn’t work, making it illegal to cross the UK.
“The only way they can do that is to have an agreement, an EU, wide agreement with all the countries linked back to where people come from, to have a international treaty where people are removed back to their homeland. That is the only thing that’s going to work.”