Member's statement: Illegal Immigration

Member's statement by Mr Jonathan Buckley on 17 November 2025.

MLA: Mr Jonathan Buckley
Party at the time: Democratic Unionist Party
Date: 17 November 2025
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: Illegal Immigration
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5245050

Text

At the outset, on behalf of the Democratic Unionist Party, I convey our deepest sympathies to the families who lost loved ones just outside Dundalk on Saturday. The pain and grief that those families and school communities are facing at the moment must be unbearable.
"Illegal immigration is tearing the UK apart"
and:
"Illegal migrants and foreign criminals are exploiting our human rights laws."
Those are not my words but those of the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom as she announced the most significant changes to our asylum system in over a decade. That very point should be one of eternal shame to the Conservative Government who previously held power for 14 years and presided over such significant issues in our asylum system. Our communities know only too well the difficulties caused by illegal immigration. They have been talking about them for years. A year ago, a Labour politician would have attempted to lock people up for making a statement such as the one that the Home Secretary made. The fact remains that the political classes seem to be going through the stages of political grief. First, they ignore you, then they laugh at, sneer at and ridicule you, then they fight you, and then they claim your viewpoint as their own. That is what has been happening in the United Kingdom. The measures that the Home Secretary has outlined are, I believe, common sense. They will not solve illegal immigration in its totality, but they will help. There are to be visa bans for countries that do not take back their citizens who have arrived on the UK's shores illegally: that is common sense. There are to be restrictions on the ability of those who arrive here illegally to claim benefits: that is common sense. There are to be restrictions on endless appeals by illegal immigrants against their removal: that is common sense. We have only to look at the legal aid bill to see that it is costing the country a fortune to deport those who should not be here in the first place.
Then there are reforms to prevent immigration judges from putting European Convention on Human Rights laws above the rights of the citizens of the United Kingdom to control our borders and keep our people safe. Those are all common-sense measures, and it is high time that the Government —
— got on with dealing with the issue.

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

Assessment

Uncertain

Uncertain: this record is excluded from all totals until a person reviews it.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.39 (qualifying needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not qualifying).
Criteria met: Sectarian or communal antagonism (0.80); Dog-whistle messaging (0.79).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.64).
The text adopts the identity-based framing in its own voice (0.70).
Subject area: Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers.
The answers did not meet either automatic threshold.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.43	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.80	Yes
Cultural grievance politics	0.02	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.79	Yes
Controversy escalation	0.17	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.64	Yes
Overall judgement	0.39	Between thresholds

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing	0.29
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.00
Adopts it (chosen)	0.70

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Immigration, asylum, race, ethnicity and Travellers	1.00
No identity-related subject	0.00
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 01:21 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9. This record has been assessed 3 times; the latest assessment is shown.

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