- Joined
- Mar 11, 2013
- Messages
- 14,837
- Points
- 113
Police are working across borders to immediately send back hundreds of people chasing more welfare payments.
Zafar thought he had done the hard bit. He had travelled from Afghanistan across mainland Europe to France, then survived a perilous Channel crossing on a small boat. But it was the final leg to Ireland that proved his undoing and ended with him in the back of a prison van.
Irish police officers believe that after applying for refugee status in the UK he was on his way to do so again in Dublin, a move that could enable him to claim a further set of more generous benefits.
Yet thanks to a police operation at the Irish border, Zafar did not reach the International Protection Office (IPO) in Dublin to lodge his application.
He was returned to the UK that same day under a deal agreed by both governments in 2019 aimed at protecting the integrity of the Common Travel Area that ensures free movement between the jurisdictions post-Brexit. A total of 443 migrants have been immediately returned to Britain from Ireland since the start of 2024 as a result of the agreement….
One of the nine officers involved in what was the GNIB’s 71st “day of action” under Operation Sonnet, which targets illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Irish border, said: “He was most likely going to claim asylum at the International Protection Office in Dublin,” adding that he was confident that Zafar, an Afghan, was aiming to criss-cross back and forth across the border, from the UK to Ireland, to collect benefits.
“We see that all the time,” the officer said. “But he’s going to be driven to Dublin Port this evening along with the others and put on the ferry.”
Zafar was one of seven men detained — “refused leave to land” — by gardai during inspections of about 12 buses that day.
An eighth, a Sudanese citizen, was also held before a Home Office inquiry revealed that he was wanted by police over an alleged sex offence in Northern Ireland and he was driven to the border for handover to the Police Service of Northern Ireland
Zafar thought he had done the hard bit. He had travelled from Afghanistan across mainland Europe to France, then survived a perilous Channel crossing on a small boat. But it was the final leg to Ireland that proved his undoing and ended with him in the back of a prison van.
Irish police officers believe that after applying for refugee status in the UK he was on his way to do so again in Dublin, a move that could enable him to claim a further set of more generous benefits.
Yet thanks to a police operation at the Irish border, Zafar did not reach the International Protection Office (IPO) in Dublin to lodge his application.
He was returned to the UK that same day under a deal agreed by both governments in 2019 aimed at protecting the integrity of the Common Travel Area that ensures free movement between the jurisdictions post-Brexit. A total of 443 migrants have been immediately returned to Britain from Ireland since the start of 2024 as a result of the agreement….
One of the nine officers involved in what was the GNIB’s 71st “day of action” under Operation Sonnet, which targets illegal immigrants attempting to cross the Irish border, said: “He was most likely going to claim asylum at the International Protection Office in Dublin,” adding that he was confident that Zafar, an Afghan, was aiming to criss-cross back and forth across the border, from the UK to Ireland, to collect benefits.
“We see that all the time,” the officer said. “But he’s going to be driven to Dublin Port this evening along with the others and put on the ferry.”
Zafar was one of seven men detained — “refused leave to land” — by gardai during inspections of about 12 buses that day.
An eighth, a Sudanese citizen, was also held before a Home Office inquiry revealed that he was wanted by police over an alleged sex offence in Northern Ireland and he was driven to the border for handover to the Police Service of Northern Ireland
