Concerns Raised Over UK Asylum Seekers Using Public Funds For Gambling

Asylum seekers are using taxpayer handouts to money their betting practices. Pre-paid cards offered to pay for fundamentals consisting of food and clothes are being utilized in betting venues such as bookmakers, amusement games and even casinos, Home Office information shows.


In the in 2015, as much as 6,537 asylum hunters have actually utilized the government-issued cards at least once for gaming. The shock figures were launched under liberty of information laws to the PoliticsHome website. They activated calls for an instant clampdown to prevent the abuse of taxpayers' money by asylum seekers, including numerous who went into the country illegally. Last night, the Office validated it had launched a query into the scandal.


It came as Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp (envisioned) described the 'shocking' figures as 'an insult to taxpayers'. 'These individuals have actually unlawfully entered this nation without requiring to - France is safe and no one requires to flee from there,' he said. 'The British taxpayer has put them up in hotels and now they slap us in the face by utilizing the cash they are offered to money betting. These illegal immigrants clearly do not need the cash they are offered if they are wasting it at gambling establishments and arcades. Labour has actually lost control of our borders with record numbers for prohibited immigrants crossing the Channel this year. The number in asylum hotels has gone up since the election and now we learn of this insult to British taxpayers. Everyone unlawfully crossing the Channel needs to be right away removed to their nation of origin or a safe 3rd nation in order to hinder these crossings.'


So-called Aspen cards are issued to asylum hunters while they wait to have their claims handled - a procedure that can take months, or even years. Those in self-catered lodging ₤ 49.18 on the card each week to pay for 'clothes and shoes, non-prescription medicines, travel, food, non-alcoholic beverages, toiletries, laundry, toilet tissue and communications'. The cards are presently provided to around 80,000 individuals who are waiting for a decision on whether they have a legitimate claim to stay in the UK. Many are residing in hotels at the taxpayers' expenditure. The Home Office last night stated: 'The Office have actually begun an examination into the usage of Aspen cards. The Home Office has a legal responsibility to support asylum applicants, including any dependants, who would otherwise be destitute.'


The Home Office has the ability to track where the cards are utilized however does not obstruct payments for specific types of deal. The figures expose that significant varieties of asylum seekers are now utilizing the cards to gamble. The Office figures break down the number of asylum applicants tried to use their cards in gambling locations each week. They do not record how lots of times each specific attempted to use their card in that week. They reveal that approximately 125 asylum hunters a week utilized their cards with 'gambling-related merchants'.


Dozens utilized the cards each week, with 177 utilizing them to bet in Christmas week when many places are closed. The figures peaked at 227 in one week at the end of November in 2015. The Aspen cards use a chip and pin system so can not be utilized for contactless payments or online. A Home Office source insisted it was 'not possible' to use the cards to straight put a bet. However, the data is understood to consist of withdrawals made from money machines inside venues such as amusement games and casinos - where gaming is the sole focus.


Paul Bristow (pictured), Tory mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, suggested betting by asylum hunters at the taxpayers' cost may even be sustaining the development of the market. He told PoliticsHome: 'Peterborough has seen a big increase in the variety of betting establishments and gaming centres, and a substantial boost in men who have actually arrived on little boats. It's not uncommon to see the very exact same males in a few of the facilities on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. There's something going on here. Questions require to be asked. It would be definitely incorrect if they were using cash offered to them by British taxpayers to squander on gaming.'


Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice said: 'This revelation, combined with migrants working illegally, reveals that the Office is incapable of policing the unlawful migrant population. This is a slap in the face to diligent British taxpayers who are struggling to make ends meet.' The discoveries are likely to sustain issues about the surge in little boat crossings under Labour. Around 20,000 individuals crossed the Channel unlawfully in the first half of this year - an increase of 50 per cent on the previous year. Public anger is currently installing over the policy of accommodating tens of thousands of asylum applicants in hotels across the country, with mad protests erupting in recent days in Epping, in Essex, Diss in Norfolk and Canary Wharf, in London.


The Aspen cards were presented to provide fundamental subsistence for asylum hunters who are not legally enabled to work or declare advantages in many cases. But ministers are progressively concerned at proof of unlawful working by asylum hunters, which may allow some to treat their taxpayer-funded handouts as pin money. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has actually purchased a clampdown on prohibited working today following a string of reports about asylum candidates generating income in the gig economy with shipment companies such as Deliveroo and Just Eat. Sometimes, delivery bikes bearing the companies' logos have been seen parked outside asylum hotels.


Firms will be released with data on the areas of asylum hotels and ordered to stop using workers who appear to have been running from there. But experts question whether this will work. Emma Brooksbank, immigration partner at law practice Freeths, stated the plan was likely to show ineffective. 'It will not be challenging for illegal workers to bypass this limitation and prevent detection. Companies like these gig economy operators are largely uncontrolled, and as such the usual right to work penalties of ₤ 60,000 per illegal worker do not apply. They have no real incentive to clean up their act.'


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