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Video: UK Border Agency
staff stop illegal immigrants at the Port of Dover

by Jess Banham

background

in july, ministers agreed to fewer compulsory checks and more intelligence-led stops – designed to slash airport queues.

officers were told they no longer needed to automatically check the biometric chips of passports belonging to uk or eu nationals.

however, it's claimed immigration officials were then told they could abandon biometric checks on non-eu nationals – and lift checks against a home office list of potential terror suspects and illegal migrants.

home secretary theresa may said these steps were not approved.

border force head brodie clark was suspended last week, along with two other members of staff. he resigned, claiming his position had become "untenable" - and launching a claim for constructive dismissal.

KentOnline's been given exclusive behind the scenes access to
the UK Border Agency (UKBA).

It comes as further allegations about the organisation
responsible for keeping our borders safe emerge.

We've spoken to some of the hundreds of staff at the Port of
Dover who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week to stop illegal
immigrants before they even step foot in the UK.

We also spent two days at Dover and on the French coast, finding
out about some of the sophisticated equipment used by officials to
prevent drugs, weapons and tobacco from reaching the UK.

It comes as a string of email messages surface, apparently
showing the extent to which checks were diluted this summer.

An exchange between UKBA officials and managers supposedly shows
passengers on private flights weren't even seen at Durham Tees
Valley Airport near Darlington, County Durham – let alone
made to show their passports.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper claimed checks were
downgraded 260 times in one week alone and described the emails
as "startling".

Meanwhile, the former head of the UK Border Force has been
responding to allegations he relaxed passport checks without
ministerial approval.

Brodie Clark resigned last week after accusing the Home
Secretary of making his position untenable. Giving evidence to MPs,
he said he did not extend or alter Theresa May's border checks
pilot scheme.

Ashford MP and immigration minister Damian Green defended the
government's record and said borders are safer now than they were
under Labour.

He said: "Everything that ministers in this government have
authorised – resources focussed on high risk passengers and
journeys, a new strategy to sort out private aviation and a new
national crime agency with a border policing command – has
been done to strengthen our borders."

On the issue of private flights, Mr said the previous government
had an inconsistent policy.

"The last government did not even have an agreed definition of
high risk flights," he said. "Under the last government,
Lord Carlisle [the government's anti-terror adviser] called private
aviation the UK's soft underbelly."

He dismissed Labour's criticism of Theresa May for failing to
come to the House as "palpably absurd".

Today's meeting of the Commons Home Affairs Committee came days
after
allegations in a Sunday newspaper that checks on coach
passengers arriving in Dover were also relaxed.

In our special report, we find out what really happens at the
Kent port, as well the entrance to the Channel Tunnel in Coquelles
and the ferry terminal in Calais.

Video: Drugs detection at
the Port of Dover

Immigration and customs controls are juxtaposed at Coquelles but
take place either side of the Channel for passengers travelling by
ferry.

Passports are checked at Calais, while in Dover, UKBA officials
search vehicles to stop goods reaching the UK illegally.

Cameron Bryce, assistant director of the UK Border Agency in
Calais, said: "If we're able to control passengers on the French
side of the Channel, it's fairly straightforward to hand them over
to the French police if they're not admissable to the UK.

"If they reach Dover, it becomes far more complicated."

• See also: Job cuts leave UK Border Agency with 'impossible job'