Debate contribution: Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Debate contribution by Mr Timothy Gaston on 23 June 2025.

MLA

Mr Timothy Gaston

Party at the time

Traditional Unionist Voice

Date

23 June 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Executive Committee Business

Heading

Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill: Legislative Consent Motion

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5045957

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The legislative consent motion covers just nine clauses of a 90-page Bill. Those clauses deal with trailer data, crime prevention orders and qualification fees. However, it completely sidesteps the issue that matters most for Northern Ireland: the open land border with the Irish Republic. Clause 2 empowers the new border security commander to set UK-wide strategic priorities, yet there is no mention — not a single line — about the land border or illegal immigration into Northern Ireland. That omission is not a technical oversight; it is a political failure and a refusal to confront reality. When the Bill was before the Commons, Jim Shannon MP secured assurances from the Minister that the PSNI and the guards would cooperate on border threats. Is the Justice Minister willing to give those same assurances to the House here today? Last week, 'The Irish News' reported that the guards are carrying out bus checks near the border. What equivalent checks and efforts are being made here in Northern Ireland? Traffickers are exploiting that weakness —.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I will do so, but I highlight a recent article in 'The Telegraph', which exposed how Albanian crime gangs openly advertise a safe route into the UK via Dublin, charging £4,000 per person. When contacted, the PSNI failed to comment. Meanwhile, in Ballymena's G3 area, over 52% of residents have arrived here within the past decade, many via the Republic, bringing sharp demographic change and raising community tensions. The Minister tells us that there is no data —

— to justify concerns about immigration in the area.

Yes —

— Mr Speaker, I will, but I encourage the Minister to look at the 2021 census data. Furthermore, ask yourself this: with no border checks, records or enforcement, how could any other form of data exist?

Absolutely. I appreciate the Member's intervention. The problem with the LCM today is that it does not look at the root causes. That is why we have ended up in Northern Ireland with the problems that we have seen over the past number of weeks. The motion may be limited, but the problem is not: Northern Ireland is being used as a back door into the UK.

I am happy to give way.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Taking your advice, I will close by saying that there is nothing compassionate or liberal about ignoring the issues. The situation is being actively exploited by smugglers, traffickers and criminal gangs. I urge the Minister to act by securing dedicated enforcement funding, insisting on cross-border action and stopping criminal gangs from exploiting our border and communities.

Hear, hear.

440 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Qualifying

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

Much of the contribution raises a legitimate policy point: the Bill's silence on the land border, trafficking gangs and cross-border policing cooperation. However, it moves from that to residents of a named Ballymena area, saying that over half 'have arrived here within the past decade', 'bringing sharp demographic change and raising community tensions'. It then presents this as a 'root cause' of 'the problems that we have seen over the past number of weeks'. Coming just after anti-immigrant disorder in that town, this treats lawful residents recorded in the census as the source of the trouble and blurs them with 'illegal immigration', which meets the rubric's tests for identity framing and dog-whistle insinuation.

Public interest or divisiveness

The questions about border enforcement, cross-border cooperation and criminal gangs engage with substance and would make sense to someone with a different view on immigration. Alongside them, the speaker presents a local migrant population as a demographic problem that explains recent community tensions. This casts a group as a burden and a cause of disorder rather than addressing the hostility shown towards it. Both elements are substantial, so the effect is mixed.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:50 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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