The British government is deporting a convicted people-trafficker from Albania for the third time in under two years, highlighting how ineffective its border control regime is even on those rare occasions when it actually removes people from the country.
39-year-old Hazir Lala was tracked down after a months-long investigation which began in July, having last been kicked out in August 2020.
Prior to that, according to reports, he had been extradited to Belgium to face trial for involvement in organised crime and human trafficking, receiving a €102,000 fine — it is unclear whether or not this was paid — and an evidently ineffectual five-year, partially suspended prison term.
Even before this the Albanian had racked up a substantial criminal record in Britain, being convicted for various driving offences and crimes related to fraudulent identification documents, for which he was receiving derisory custodial sentences as long ago as 2016.
“Hazir Lala is a convicted human trafficker and has no place in the UK, his presence here presented an unacceptable risk to the public,” said Jacque Beer, regional head of investigations at the National Crime Agency (NCA) — roughly equivalent to America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) — in comments quoted by GB News.
“Tackling organised immigration crime and human trafficking is a priority for the Agency,” Beer continued.
“We saw with last week’s tragedy in the Channel, the horrendous dangers of organised immigration crime which the Agency and its partners are doing everything possible to combat,” he added — somewhat dubiously, given the British authorities’ exceedingly poor record when it comes to preventing illegal immigration and deporting illegal aliens and foreign criminals.
Indeed, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) recently indicated that it will no longer charge all but a few migrants who break into Britain illegally and the national Border Force has signalled that it has no intention of ever turning back migrant boats, whatever the government says — although it does meet boats at sea in order to help migrants complete their journeys to English shores, often in close co-operation with France.
One possible explanation for this institutional indifference to illegal immigration may lie in the attitude of top officials, with the Border Force’s outgoing chief having recently given a speech in which he opined that “We’re all human beings, we’re all mammals, we’re all rocks, plants, rivers. Bloody borders are just such a pain in the bloody ass.”