Is this another example of a policy approach shared by the Prime Minister and the President?Via the Daily Telegraph:

Immigration control was denounced as a mockery yesterday after Whitehall officials disclosed that those overstaying illegally are not pursued “as individuals” and hundreds of thousands of National Insurance numbers are given to foreign nationals without any check on their status. MPs on the all-party Commons home affairs committee were flabbergasted to hear from senior civil servants that no records were kept on people whose applications to stay in Britain were turned down after months or even years of expensive legal wrangling. Dave Roberts, who holds the title Director, Enforcement and Removals, at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, “had not the faintest idea” how many people were here illegally. He also said he had no figures on the extent to which people refused asylum were followed up for deportation. Checking on individuals was “not an effective strategy. . . we are making huge efforts to remove them but not at the basis of tracing individuals”. He was also unable to give figures on how many foreign nationals required to report to immigration offices did so. Nor could he say how many asylum applicants sent Home Office letters telling them to leave Britain were still here.An increasingly frustrated John Denham, the committee’s Labour chairman, said: “Surely you must know how many people have been told they should leave the country?” Mr Roberts replied: “I don’t have that information.

Tony Blair’s government. Clueless. Literally.