Concerns Raised Over UK Asylum Seekers Utilizing Public Funds For Gambling

Asylum seekers are utilizing taxpayer handouts to fund their gambling habits. Pre-paid cards given out to spend for essentials including food and clothing are being used in gambling places such as bookies, amusement arcades and even casinos, Home Office data shows.


In the last year, up to 6,537 asylum applicants have utilized the government-issued cards at least once for betting. The shock figures were launched under flexibility of info laws to the PoliticsHome site. They set off calls for an immediate clampdown to avoid the abuse of taxpayers' money by asylum applicants, consisting of many who got in the country unlawfully. Last night, the Office confirmed it had introduced a query into the scandal.


It came as Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp (visualized) described the 'stunning' figures as 'an insult to taxpayers'. 'These individuals have illegally entered this nation without needing to - France is safe and no one needs to flee from there,' he said. 'The British taxpayer has actually put them up in hotels and now they slap us in the face by utilizing the cash they are provided to money betting. These illegal immigrants clearly don't need the cash they are given 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 increased considering that the election and now we find out of this insult to British taxpayers. Everyone unlawfully crossing the Channel should be instantly removed to their native land or a safe third nation in order to prevent these crossings.'


So-called Aspen cards are issued to asylum candidates while they wait to have their claims handled - a procedure that can take months, or perhaps years. Those in self-catered lodging get ₤ 49.18 on the card weekly to pay for 'clothing and footwear, non-prescription medicines, travel, food, non-alcoholic drinks, toiletries, laundry, toilet tissue and communications'. The cards are currently released to around 80,000 people who are awaiting a decision on whether they have a valid claim to remain in the UK. Many are residing in hotels at the taxpayers' expenditure. The Office last night said: 'The Office have begun an investigation into using Aspen cards. The Office has a legal commitment to support asylum seekers, consisting of any dependants, who would otherwise be destitute.'


The Office is able to track where the cards are used but does not obstruct payments for specific kinds of transaction. The figures expose that significant varieties of asylum seekers are now using the cards to bet. The Office figures break down the number of asylum hunters attempted to utilize their cards in betting locations weekly. They do not record the number of times each private tried to use their card because week. They reveal that an average of 125 asylum seekers a week utilized their cards with 'gambling-related merchants'.


Dozens used the cards each week, with 177 using them to bet in Christmas week when numerous 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. An Office source insisted it was 'not possible' to use the cards to straight position a bet. However, the data is understood to include withdrawals made from atm inside locations such as amusement games and gambling establishments - where betting is the sole focus.


Paul Bristow (imagined), Tory mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, suggested gaming by asylum candidates at the taxpayers' expenditure might even be sustaining the development of the industry. He informed PoliticsHome: 'Peterborough has seen a huge boost in the number of gambling establishments and gaming centres, and a big boost in men who've arrived on small boats. It's not uncommon to see the really same guys in some of the establishments on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. There's something going on here. Questions need to be asked. It would be definitely wrong if they were using money offered to them by British taxpayers to waste on betting.'


Reform UK's deputy leader Richard Tice stated: 'This revelation, coupled with migrants working unlawfully, reveals that the 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 meet.' The revelations are likely to sustain concerns about the explosion in small boat crossings under Labour. Around 20,000 people crossed the Channel illegally in the very first half of this year - an increase of 50 percent on the previous year. Public anger is already mounting over the policy of accommodating tens of countless asylum seekers in hotels throughout the nation, with upset protests appearing in recent days in Epping, in Essex, Diss in Norfolk and Canary Wharf, in London.


The Aspen cards were presented to supply fundamental subsistence for asylum hunters who are not legally permitted to work or declare advantages most of the times. But ministers are progressively concerned at proof of unlawful working by asylum applicants, which might permit some to treat their taxpayer-funded handouts as pin cash. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has actually ordered a clampdown on illegal working this week following a string of reports about asylum candidates making money in the gig economy with shipment companies such as Deliveroo and Just Eat. In some cases, delivery bikes bearing the companies' logos have actually been seen parked outside asylum hotels.


Firms will be issued with information on the locations of asylum hotels and purchased to stop using employees who appear to have actually been operating from there. But specialists question whether this will work. Emma Brooksbank, immigration partner at law practice Freeths, said the plan was likely to prove ineffective. 'It will not be difficult for prohibited workers to bypass this and avoid detection. Companies like these gig economy operators are mostly unregulated, and as such the typical right to work penalties of ₤ 60,000 per illegal employee do not use. They have no genuine reward to tidy up their act.'


FranceThe Home OfficeChannel 4