HOLIDAY Drivers could face hefty fines if they don’t lock up their boots before crossing the channel as part of new tough border measures.
The plans are part of Priti Patel’s wide ranging reforms of the border to crack down on illegal immigration and the asylum system.
Drivers could be lumped with a £2000 fine for “failing to secure a vehicle” which could apply to car boots, caravans, vans and lorries.
A consultation into the proposed plans are laid out in the 60 page dossier called a “New Plan for Immigration.”
If agreed ministers would create a new offence in a bid to stop migrants hoping into vehicles while queuing to cross the channel.
It would be handed out “regardless of whether clandestine entrants are found on board or not.”
Although the consolation is aimed primarily at lorry drivers, Home Office officials could not rule out the laws being extended to tourists coming back from the continent.
Sources said they aren’t seeking to target tourists but they didn’t rule it out in the wider consultation.
A Home Office spokesperson added: “The focus of the enforcement of these measures will be hauliers who do not take appropriate measures to prevent illegal entry into the UK.”
Ms Patel outlined her plans to overhaul the current system to MPs today.
Another plan will see refugees who turn to a life of crime having their status revoked and will be booted out of Britain.
The Home Secretary announced plans to revoke asylum status to anyone who breaks the law and ends up with a prison sentence over 12 months – in line with other immigration rules.
Under current laws asylum seekers who commit a crime, have to be jailed for over two years before they can have their status stripped from them.
Ms Patel told Trending In The News that she would take aim at immoral lawyers and lefty armchair critics, the Home Secretary declared “no one can defend the current system” as she launches the biggest reforms in a generation to Britain’s “broken” asylum process.
People smugglers face full life sentences and immigration legal firms face their entire business being upended for helping to “support criminality” and luring people to Britain under false hope.
Priti told Trending In The News “the status quo is not an option anymore” as she warned her “mission” will take years to complete.
Throwing down the gauntlet to the PM amid suggestions she could be reshuffled out of her job, she says: “I’m here to get on and do this job” but stressed it would be “hard, hard graft.”
“This will take time and I’ll be very honest with the British people about this there’s no one quick fix, this is not a short term, this is for the long term.”
Priti’s landmark reforms will be based on three “firm but fair” pillars:
- FIRSTLY opening more legal paths for the truly needy from wartorn areas of the world.
- SECONDLY cutting off the smuggling routes across the Channel and their criminal masterminds through Europe.
- THIRDLY making it easier to deport people with no right to be in the UK and punishing lawyers who pursue hopeless appeals, clogging up the system
Speaking from her Whitehall office on Tuesday she warned that the aim of the reforms was to stop young economic male migrants “elbowing their way” to the front of the immigration queue.
Migrants dumped onto British beaches by people smugglers face being immediately deported to facilities outside the EU where they will have their claims processed – dubbed ‘boomeranging’ by Ms Patel’s Home Office team.
