'Give illegals free access to schools, NHS and housing' says UN Human Rights tsar

BRITAIN and other EU countries should dole out free access to health care, education and housing to illegal immigrants, the UN Human Rights tsar said yesterday.

A picture of Home office and Francois CrepeauGETTY

Francois Crepeau condemned the treatment of illegal immigrants as if they were criminals

Those who sneak in must be allowed to work and be paid “proper wages”, said Francois Crepeau.

The EU as a whole together with other western states should be prepared to find homes for a million asylum seekers over the next five years, he urged.

The UN’s special rapporteur on human rights added: “While it may constitute an administrative offence, irregular migration is not a crime... irregular migrants are not criminals and should not be treated as such.”

He made his incendiary comments in an “end of mission” report issued after spending four days in Brussels studying the EU’s border management.

He said: “Irregular migrants should be able to access health care, education, local police, social services, public housing, health and safety inspectors and labour inspectors without risking being reported to immigration enforcement.”

He revealed that 150,000 would-be refugees arrived in Europe by sea last year – nearly double the 80,000 that landed in 2013.

“Any attempt at sealing borders...will continue to fail on a massive scale,” he warned, arguing that Syrian war refugees “cannot be expected by the EU to live in Lebanon and Turkey indefinitely.”

Irregular migrants should be able to access health care, education, local police, social services, public housing, health and safety inspectors and labour inspectors without risking being reported to immigration enforcement

Francois Crepeau

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: “This statement demonstrates how seriously out of touch with the real world some representatives of the UN have become.

“The idea that you can solve the problem of international illegal migration by making life more comfortable for these people is a recipe for complete disaster. It will only encourage more flows of migrants to our shores.”

Peter Bone, also a Tory MP said: “What Mr Crepeau is suggesting is a complete nonsense.

"If people are coming into the country illegally they are breaking the law and should be deported as soon as possible. The idea that controlling our borders is wrong is offensive to the British people.”

Steven Woolfe, Ukip migration spokesman, said: “Mr Crepeau epitomizes why so many people in Britain dislike interfering international bureaucrats.

“He is an unknown and unrecognisable bureaucrat, trying enforce a migration policy and philosophy that is alien to the working people of most member nation states.

"He only way for Britain to regain control of its own borders is to leave the EU altogether and implement proper border controls as an independent nation state.” 

Spain battles immigrants

THE controversial views on migration of Francois Crepeau add to the suspicion that UN special rapporteurs – or investigators – are promoting their own bizarre Leftist agendas.

The 54-year-old Canadian law professor follows in the footsteps of Brazilian housing tsar Raquel Rolnik, who produced a “misleading Marxist diatribe” attacking the so-called bedroom tax and UK cuts to housing benefit.

In a 22-page letter last year, Rolnik also joined Maria Carmona, special rapporteur on extreme poverty, and Olivier De Schutter, the special rapporteur on the right to food, to claim that Coalition steps to tackle the huge budget deficit left by Labour could break Britain’s international treaty obligations to the poor.

Earlier, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, a South African feminist academic, said sexism in Britain was the worst she had seen in the world despite her visits to dangerously repressive countries such as Bangladesh, Somalia and Algeria. 

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