The government is set to trial the use of text messages in the battle against illegal immigration, the Home Office has announced.
The government is set to start a three-month trial next month testing the idea of using SMS to contact migrants when their visas are about to run out.
The plan has been met with much criticism. David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary with the Conservative Party called the plan "extraordinary."
"This is a serious admission of defeat. John Reid is effectively giving up on trying to deport the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in this country, preferring instead to spam them with text messages," Davis said. "It is all rather extraordinary. The idea that somebody who is about to overstay or who is overstaying will change his mind because somebody sends him a text message seems to be something out of this world."
