A shocking border force gaffe may have opened the door for thousands offoreign nationals to stay in Britain permanently.
Astonishingly, the Home Office doesn’t know how many passport stamps allowing immigrants to stay indefinitely have been awarded.
One Home Office insider branded the situation a “total farce” and admitted the mistake may have been made “thousands of times”.
The blunder came to light after an Albanian migrant was given the stamp in his passport, after being examined by UK Border Force in 2020. What followed so a lengthy legal fight, which eventually found the man’s right to be in the UK invalid.
According to the DailyMail however, there could be thousands more such examples of migrants being falsely given the passport stamp which tells them they have been “admitted to the UK” under European regulations.
A Home Office insider told the publication: “This stamp could have been used thousands of times. We just don’t know the true figure. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. It’s a total farce.
“There’s an unknown number of foreign nationals in this country who may be using this stamp to live here indefinitely.
“Most of them will entirely innocently think the stamp grants them those rights.”
Tory MP Simon Fell said that he was to urgently demand answers over the potentially catastrophic error, adding that there was no room for “confusion” over the matter.
He told the same publication: “There are serious questions to be asked about the use of this stamp: not least how many individuals have it in their travel documents.
“There is no room for confusion about this – either you have a right to be in the UK, or you don’t.”
Migration Watch chief Alp Mehmet struck a similar note, branding the situation a “serious systemic failure resulting from shocking unprofessionalism”.
A Home Office spokesman said: “Border Force’s number one priority is to keep our borders safe and secure, and we will never compromise on this.
“It is longstanding government policy that we do not comment on operational matters.”
