Concerns Raised Over UK Asylum Seekers Using Public Funds For Gambling

Asylum hunters are utilizing taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling practices. Pre-paid cards provided to pay for fundamentals including food and clothing are being utilized in gambling locations such as bookies, amusement arcades and even gambling establishments, Home Office data programs.


In the last year, approximately 6,537 asylum applicants have used the government-issued cards at least as soon as for betting. The shock figures were released under freedom of information laws to the PoliticsHome site. They triggered calls for an immediate clampdown to prevent the abuse of taxpayers' money by asylum seekers, consisting of many who entered the nation illegally. Last night, the Home Office validated it had launched a questions into the scandal.


It came as Shadow Home Philp (pictured) explained the 'shocking' figures as 'an insult to taxpayers'. 'These people have illegally entered this country without requiring to - France is safe and nobody requires to leave from there,' he stated. 'The British taxpayer has put them up in hotels and now they slap us in the face by using the cash they are offered to money gambling. These illegal immigrants plainly do not need the cash they are given if they are squandering it at casinos and arcades. Labour has lost control of our borders with record numbers for unlawful immigrants crossing the Channel this year. The number in asylum hotels has increased since the election and now we learn of this insult to British taxpayers. Everyone unlawfully crossing the Channel ought to be immediately gotten rid of to their nation of origin or a safe 3rd country in order to prevent these crossings.'


So-called Aspen cards are released to asylum seekers while they wait to have their claims handled - a process that can take months, or even years. Those in self-catered lodging receive ₤ 49.18 on the card weekly to pay for 'clothing and footwear, non-prescription medicines, travel, food, non-alcoholic beverages, toiletries, laundry, toilet paper and interactions'. The cards are presently issued to around 80,000 individuals who are waiting for a choice on whether they have a valid claim to remain in the UK. Many are residing in hotels at the taxpayers' expense. The Office last night said: 'The Office have begun an examination into using Aspen cards. The Office has a legal obligation 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 but does not block payments for specific types of deal. The figures expose that substantial varieties of asylum applicants are now using the cards to gamble. The Office figures break down the number of asylum candidates attempted to utilize their cards in betting venues every week. They do not record how lots of times each individual attempted to use their card because week. They reveal that an average of 125 asylum candidates a week used their cards with 'gambling-related merchants'.


Dozens utilized the cards weekly, with 177 using them to gamble in Christmas week when numerous venues are closed. The figures peaked at 227 in one week at the end of November last year. The Aspen cards utilize a chip and pin system so can not be used for contactless payments or online. An Office source insisted it was 'not possible' to use the cards to straight place a bet. However, the information is comprehended to include withdrawals made from money makers inside venues such as amusement arcades and casinos - where betting is the sole focus.


Paul Bristow (imagined), Tory mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, recommended gambling by asylum candidates at the taxpayers' cost may even be fuelling the growth of the market. He informed PoliticsHome: 'Peterborough has seen a huge increase in the variety of betting establishments and gaming centres, and a substantial increase in males who've shown up on small boats. It's not unusual to see the very same men in some of the facilities on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. There's something going on here. Questions need to be asked. It would be absolutely wrong if they were utilizing money offered to them by British taxpayers to lose on betting.'


Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice said: 'This discovery, coupled with migrants working illegally, reveals that the Home Office is incapable of policing the illegal migrant population. This is a slap in the face to dedicated British taxpayers who are struggling to make ends fulfill.' The discoveries are likely to fuel concerns about the explosion in small boat crossings under Labour. Around 20,000 individuals crossed the Channel illegally in the very first half of this year - a rise of 50 percent on the previous year. Public anger is already installing over the policy of accommodating 10s of thousands of asylum seekers in hotels across the nation, with angry demonstrations emerging in current days in Epping, in Essex, Diss in Norfolk and Canary Wharf, in London.


The Aspen cards were presented to supply fundamental subsistence for asylum applicants who are not lawfully permitted to work or claim advantages in many cases. But ministers are significantly worried at evidence of illegal working by asylum candidates, which might enable some to treat their taxpayer-funded handouts as pin cash. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a clampdown on unlawful working today following a string of reports about asylum candidates making money in the gig economy with delivery companies such as Deliveroo and Just Eat. In some cases, shipment bikes bearing the firms' logo designs have actually been seen parked outside asylum hotels.


Firms will be issued with information on the areas of asylum hotels and ordered to stop utilizing workers who appear to have been running from there. But experts question whether this will work. Emma Brooksbank, immigration partner at law firm Freeths, stated the plan was likely to prove ineffective. 'It will not be hard for illegal employees to bypass this restriction and avoid detection. Companies like these gig economy operators are mainly unregulated, and as such the usual right to work charges of ₤ 60,000 per prohibited employee do not use. They have no real reward to clean up their act.'


FranceThe Home OfficeChannel 4