United Kingdom Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border | |
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Home Office UK Visas and Immigration | |
Style | Immigration Minister (informal) The Right Honourable (within the UK and Commonwealth) |
Type | Minister of the Crown |
Status | Minister of State |
Member of | His Majesty's Government |
Reports to | |
Seat | Westminster |
Nominator | Prime Minister |
Appointer | The Monarch (on the advice of the Prime Minister) |
Term length | At His Majesty's pleasure |
Formation | 6 May 1979 |
First holder | Tim Raison |
Salary | £115,824 per annum (2022) [1] (including £86,584 MP salary) [2] |
Website | Official website |
The Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border is a minister of state in the Home Office of the Government of the United Kingdom.
From June 2017 to July 2019 and October 2022 to December 2023, the minister attended cabinet meetings as Minister of State for Immigration and was seen as one of the most senior Minister of State positions in the Government.
The role was known as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Future Borders and Immigration from 2020 to 2021 and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safe and Legal Migration from 2021 to 2022.
Following the resignation of Robert Jenrick in December 2023, the position was split into two roles: the Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration and the Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border.
As of 2022 the minister has responsibility for legal migration, illegal migration and asylum, [3] including:
Name | Portrait | Term of office | Political party | Prime Minister | Notes | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Minister of State for the Home Office | |||||||
Tim Raison | 6 May 1979 | 6 January 1983 | Conservative | Margaret Thatcher | Minister of State with responsibility for the Immigration and Nationality Department | ||
David Waddington | 6 January 1983 | 13 June 1987 | |||||
Tim Renton | 13 June 1987 | 25 July 1989 | |||||
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office | |||||||
Peter Lloyd | 25 July 1989 | 28 November 1990 | Conservative | Margaret Thatcher | Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for the Immigration and Nationality Department | ||
28 November 1990 | 15 April 1992 | John Major | |||||
Charles Wardle | ![]() | 15 April 1992 | 20 July 1994 | ||||
Minister of State for the Home Office | |||||||
The Baroness Blatch | ![]() | 20 July 1994 | 2 May 1997 | Conservative | John Major | Minister of State with responsibility for the Immigration and Nationality Department | |
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Immigration | |||||||
Michael O'Brien | ![]() | 5 May 1997 | 8 June 2001 | Labour | Tony Blair | ||
Minister of State for Asylum and Immigration | |||||||
Barbara Roche | 28 July 1999 | 11 June 2001 | Labour | Tony Blair | |||
The Lord Rooker | ![]() | 11 June 2001 | 29 May 2002 | ||||
Minister of State for Citizenship, Immigration and Community Cohesion | |||||||
Beverley Hughes | ![]() | 29 May 2002 | 13 June 2003 | Labour | Tony Blair | ||
Minister of State for Citizenship, Immigration and Counter-Terrorism [4] | |||||||
Beverley Hughes | ![]() | 13 June 2003 | 1 April 2004 | Labour | Tony Blair | Resigned over illegal immigration visa scandal [5] | |
Minister of State for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality [6] [7] | |||||||
Des Browne | ![]() | 1 April 2004 | 6 May 2005 | Labour | Tony Blair | ||
Tony McNulty | ![]() | 16 May 2005 | 23 May 2006 | ||||
Minister of State for Citizenship, Immigration and Nationality | |||||||
Liam Byrne | ![]() | 23 May 2006 | 27 June 2007 | Labour | Tony Blair | ||
Minister of State for Borders and Immigration [4] [8] | |||||||
Liam Byrne | ![]() | 27 June 2007 | 3 October 2008 | Labour | Gordon Brown | ||
Phil Woolas | ![]() | 3 October 2008 | 11 May 2010 | ||||
Minister of State for Immigration [9] [10] | |||||||
Damian Green | ![]() | 13 May 2010 | 4 September 2012 | Conservative | David Cameron | ||
Mark Harper | ![]() | 4 September 2012 | 8 February 2014 | ||||
Minister of State for Security and Immigration | |||||||
James Brokenshire | ![]() | 8 February 2014 | 14 July 2016 | Conservative | David Cameron | ||
Minister of State for Immigration | |||||||
Robert Goodwill | ![]() | 16 July 2016 | 11 June 2017 | Conservative | Theresa May | ||
Brandon Lewis | ![]() | 11 June 2017 | 8 January 2018 | Attended meetings of the Cabinet [11] | |||
Caroline Nokes | ![]() | 8 January 2018 | 24 July 2019 | Attended meetings of the Cabinet | |||
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Immigration [12] | |||||||
Seema Kennedy | ![]() | 26 July 2019 | 16 December 2019 | Conservative | Boris Johnson | ||
Kevin Foster | ![]() | 16 December 2019 | 14 February 2020 | ||||
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Future Borders and Immigration (Until December 2021) [13] Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safe and Legal Migration (From December 2021) [14] | |||||||
Kevin Foster | ![]() | 14 February 2020 | 7 September 2022 | Conservative | Boris Johnson | ||
Minister of State for Immigration [3] | |||||||
Tom Pursglove | ![]() | 7 September 2022 | 25 October 2022 | Conservative | Liz Truss | ||
Robert Jenrick | ![]() | 25 October 2022 | 6 December 2023 | Conservative | Rishi Sunak | Attended meetings of the Cabinet | |
Role split with new Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration Minister of State for Legal Migration and the Border | |||||||
Tom Pursglove | ![]() | 7 December 2023 | 5 July 2024 | Conservative | Rishi Sunak |
The Home Office (HO), also known as the Home Department, is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for immigration, security, and law and order. As such, it is responsible for policing in England and Wales, fire and rescue services in England, Border Force, visas and immigration, and the Security Service (MI5). It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counterterrorism, and immigration. It was formerly responsible for His Majesty's Prison Service and the National Probation Service, but these have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice.
The Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) was a department of the Government of Australia that was responsible for immigration, citizenship and border control. It has now been subsumed into the Department of Home Affairs, which combines its responsibilities with a number of other portfolios.
Since 1945, immigration to the United Kingdom, controlled by British immigration law and to an extent by British nationality law, has been significant, in particular from the Republic of Ireland and from the former British Empire, especially India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, the Caribbean, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Hong Kong. Since the accession of the UK to the European Communities in the 1970s and the creation of the EU in the early 1990s, immigrants relocated from member states of the European Union, exercising one of the European Union's Four Freedoms. In 2021, since Brexit came into effect, previous EU citizenship's right to newly move to and reside in the UK on a permanent basis does not apply anymore. A smaller number have come as asylum seekers seeking protection as refugees under the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention.
The Common Travel Area is an open borders area comprising the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The British Overseas Territories are not included. Governed by non-binding agreements, the CTA maintains minimal border controls, allowing easy passage for British and Irish citizens with limited identity documentation, albeit with some exceptions. Sustaining the CTA requires cooperation between British and Irish immigration authorities.
Immigration detention is the policy of holding individuals suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorized arrival, as well as those subject to deportation and removal until a decision is made by immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of departure. Mandatory detention refers to the practice of compulsorily detaining or imprisoning people who are considered to be illegal immigrants or unauthorized arrivals into a country. Some countries have set a maximum period of detention, while others permit indefinite detention.
Mark James Harper is a British politician who served in the Cabinet as Chief Whip of the House of Commons from 2015 to 2016 and as Secretary of State for Transport from 2022 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire from 2005 until his defeat in 2024.
Immigration law includes the national statutes, regulations, and legal precedents governing immigration into and deportation from a country. Strictly speaking, it is distinct from other matters such as naturalization and citizenship, although they are sometimes conflated. Countries frequently maintain laws that regulate both the rights of entry and exit as well as internal rights, such as the duration of stay, freedom of movement, and the right to participate in commerce or government.
According to the 2021 Canadian census, immigrants in Canada number 8.3 million persons and make up approximately 23 percent of Canada's total population. This represents the eighth-largest immigrant population in the world, while the proportion represents one of the highest ratios for industrialized Western countries.
Migration Watch UK is a British think-tank and campaign group which argues for lower immigration into the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, the group believes that international migration places undue demand on limited resources and that the current level of immigration is not sustainable.
Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of that country's immigration laws, or the continuous residence in a country without the legal right to. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upward, from poorer to richer countries. Illegal residence in another country creates the risk of detention, deportation, and/or other persecutions.
The UK Border Agency (UKBA) was the border control agency of the Government of the United Kingdom and part of the Home Office that was superseded by UK Visas and Immigration, Border Force and Immigration Enforcement in April 2013. It was formed as an executive agency on 1 April 2008 by a merger of the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), UKvisas and the detection functions of HM Revenue and Customs. The decision to create a single border control organisation was taken following a Cabinet Office report.
The Australian government has a policy and practice of detaining in immigration detention facilities non-citizens not holding a valid visa, suspected of visa violations, illegal entry or unauthorised arrival, and those subject to deportation and removal in immigration detention until a decision is made by the immigration authorities to grant a visa and release them into the community, or to repatriate them to their country of origin/passport. Persons in immigration detention may at any time opt to voluntarily leave Australia for their country of origin, or they may be deported or given a bridging or temporary visa. In 1992, Australia adopted a mandatory detention policy obliging the government to detain all persons entering or being in the country without a valid visa, while their claim to remain in Australia is processed and security and health checks undertaken. Also, at the same time, the law was changed to permit indefinite detention, from the previous limit of 273 days. The policy was instituted by the Keating government in 1992, and was varied by the subsequent Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott, Turnbull, Morrison and Albanese Governments. The policy is regarded as controversial and has been criticised by a number of organisations. In 2004, the High Court of Australia confirmed the constitutionality of indefinite mandatory detention of non-citizens. However, this interpretation was overturned in a landmark decision, NZYQ v Minister for Immigration, in 2023, with the High Court concluding the practice was unlawful and unconstitutional.
The visa policy of the United Kingdom is the policy by which His Majesty's Government determines visa requirements for visitors to the United Kingdom, and the Crown dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey, and the Isle of Man and those seeking to work, study or reside there.
It is difficult to measure how many people reside in the UK without authorisation, although a Home Office study based on Census 2001 data released in March 2005 estimated a population of between 310,000 and 570,000. The methods used to arrive at a figure are also much debated. Problems arise in particular from the very nature of the target population, which is hidden and mostly wants to remain so. The different definitions of 'illegality' adopted in the studies also pose a significant challenge to the comparability of the data. However, despite the methodological difficulties of estimating the number of people living in the UK without authorisation, the residual method has been widely adopted. This method subtracts the known number of authorised migrants from the total migrant population to arrive at a residual number which represents the de facto number of illegal migrants.
Illegal immigration to Australia is defined by the Migration Act 1958, which distinguishes between "lawful non-citizens" and "unlawful non-citizens".
Asylum in Australia has been granted to many refugees since 1945, when half a million Europeans displaced by World War II were given asylum. Since then, there have been periodic waves of asylum seekers from South East Asia and the Middle East, with government policy and public opinion changing over the years.
Although some means of controlling foreign visitors to the United Kingdom existed before 1905, modern immigration border controls as now understood originated then. Although an Alien Act was passed in 1793 and remained in force to some extent or other until 1836, there were no controls between then and 1905 barring a very loosely policed system of registration on entry.
Federal policy oversees and regulates immigration to the United States and citizenship of the United States. The United States Congress has authority over immigration policy in the United States, and it delegates enforcement to the Department of Homeland Security. Historically, the United States went through a period of loose immigration policy in the early-19th century followed by a period of strict immigration policy in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Policy areas related to the immigration process include visa policy, asylum policy, and naturalization policy. Policy areas related to illegal immigration include deferral policy and removal policy.
The Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration is a senior role in the British Home Office with responsibility for tackling illegal migration. The position has been vacant pending the formation of the Starmer ministry. It was previously held by Michael Tomlinson from December 2023 to July 2024. As a Minister of State attending meetings of the Cabinet, the holder of this office is seen as one of the most senior Ministers of State in the Government.
The UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership was an immigration policy proposed by the governments of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak whereby people whom the United Kingdom identified as illegal immigrants or asylum seekers would have been relocated to Rwanda for processing, asylum and resettlement. Those who were successful in claiming asylum would have remained in Rwanda, and they would not have been permitted to return to the United Kingdom.
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