- BY Colin Yeo
Mark Harper, Hansard 5 Sep 2013 Col 585
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If we were to do what my hon. Friend suggested and have a blanket policy of not detaining [pregnant] women, first, having read many cases, I fear we would find quite a lot of people saying they were pregnant as another method of delaying their departure from the UK … I do not want this to be an excuse that women who are not pregnant dream up in order to throw a legal obstacle in the way.
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Colin Yeo
Immigration and asylum barrister, blogger, writer and consultant at Garden Court Chambers in London and founder of the Free Movement immigration law website.
11 responses
Link here, courtesy of AVID, if you want to read and weep:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm130905/debtext/130905-0004.htm#13090545000001
“Quite a lot of people saying they were pregnant.” Yeah, right, that’ll get you out of Harmondsworth or Colnbrook.
In countries where parents can stay some people (with politics on ranges between UKIP to BNP and neo-nazis) suggest that migrants of both sexes engage in “procreation for immigration”. There is no evidence of it, only anecdotal stories which can’t be verified.
And if one in thousandas of parents (of both sexes) wanted a child only for immigration purposes, or pretended there was a parent-child relationship where there isn’t, why punish all the othersat the same time? Doesn’t happen in any other area.
“Saying they were pregnant”? Is Harper not aware that pregnancy can be verified?
But people don’t matter. Money and corporations matter to conservatives.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23989305
My concern is men jumping on the bandwagon and pretending they are pregnant too.
Indeed.
Why shouldn’t they if they are “married”? Mr. Harper & Co. can’t have it both ways. I was glad for the stat on refugee application to EU Countries with Germany receiving the most applications in 2012. Can anyone do a similar stats for UK residents in oil rich Nigeria and their income? The net migration figure is simply numeric and therefore flawed. It is just possible that such a stat will reveal some interesting facts that informs the current debate.
Quite right Andrew, getting a pregnancy test from Boots with change from a £10 note surely can’t be beyond the Home Office can it?
It’s perhaps political and legal tactics, deport before they have to consider S.55 duties.
Harper is looking at numbers before humanity, sadly.
Hahaha Julian Bild! You’ve got to laugh or you’d cry really!
I think a woman bearing a child for someone is not something you’d do “just” to keep them in the country and if you did then it just shows how much that persons’ presence means to you. Who are these ‘baby mules’ the government claim exist?
Nothing a bulk order of pregnancy tests and some wee can’t solve.
Quite