BY BEN KERRIGAN
Rogue landlords who fail to check the immigration status of tenants could be fined or imprisoned for up to five years under a new criminal offence to be included in a new immigration bill. And the government will also get tough on landlords who rent out properties that are dangerous, dirty, or below adequate standards.
The communities secretary, Greg Clarke also intends to announce legislative plans to create a blacklist of persistent rogue landlords, thereby enabling local council to identify them easily, in a radical crackdown on rogue landlords which will include new preventative measures against the renting out of sub standard properties.
David Cameron promised to leave no stone unturned in his strong resolution to combat what he described as ” the swarm of people” from Calais; an adjective that drew much criticism from commentators who construed his rhetoric as insensitive to the humanitarian crisis that has hit that part of the world.
The prime ministers words were not carefully chosen, though the underpinning sentiment of his words was given currency when the Theresa May asserted that the streets of Britain is not ”paved with gold”.
Extra backbone was given to the scheduled crackdown on illegal immigration when Home Office minister, James Brokenshire, defended plans to remove automatic benefits from families who did not win asylum, as a way of signalling that the UK was not “a land of milk and honey”.
The move is part of a government initiative to discourage migrants from leaving their countries of origin in the first place, by showing that Britain is a cold place for those whose asylum applications are rejected. Indeed, both the Home Secretary and The Home Office Minister acknowledge the heightened crisis in Calais that has ignited the exodus of people fleeing the troubled region, but their hard lined response is a symptom of the already stretched out overflow of migrants in Britain and the huge controversy it has caused in the last few years.
CONTRIBUTION OF IMMIGRANTS
Many immigrants without question contribute an appreciable amount to the economic growth of this country. We would be foolish to detest immigrants simply because they are foreign, because most of us English are descendants of people from foreign countries like Germany, Australia, etc. However, the sheer number of those who are illegal and who strangle the benefit system, has long been a bother to large sections of the British population. With immigration already a troublesome issue in Britain for a while, the government could hardly be receptive to an unrestrained influx of people coming to settle here, even if there is a case for some western government to take responsibility for their well being, if they are escaping serious persecution or the likes of it.
LEGAL PERMISSION TO EVICT
Laws in progress will allow landlords to evict tenants once they are aware that the tenants has no right to remain in the UK. In fact, the laws will go one step further and fine Landlords who house illegal immigrants, and possibly even jail them for up to five years for failing to realize that a particular tenant had no right to remain in the UK. In In short, Landlords who rent to illegal immigrants because they failed to carry out a ‘right to rent’ check, will have committed a criminal offence.
