ONE WEDDING IN FOUR A 'SHAM' BY MIGRANTS
The Daly Express
Tuesday June 26,2007
ONE in four weddings in some parts of Britain until 2005 could have been a sham to get around immigration rules, a report says.
Hundreds of thousands of migrants are thought to have married EU nationals just to stay in Britain. Gangs charge up to 10,000 to arrange the shams.
New rules brought in two years ago required newcomers to undergo Home Office checks.
The changes have resulted in a 70 per cent drop in weddings in some areas, suggesting sham marriages were a huge proportion of all register office ceremonies. In Newham, East London, weddings fell by 72 per cent. In Birmingham, there was a drop of almost 20 per cent.
Mark Rimmer, Brent Councils director of registration and nationality, said: These figures suggest that one in four marriages was bogus.
Most people will be amazed by the scale of this.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damien Green said: The figures reveal immigration rules were breached on an industrial scale.
