I entered the UK with a migrant exploiting the porous Irish border
Scrolling through a check-list on his mobile phone, the latest asylum seeker to set foot in Britain asked me where he could exchange his foreign currency. The 25-year-old man from the Middle East had just arrived by bus at Belfast Grand Central Station through a backdoor route[1] from the Republic of Ireland to the United Kingdom.
He had flown from Germany to Dublin Airport, before boarding the Translink X1 bus service to Northern Ireland. I was on the bus, retracing the two-hour journey believed to have been used by Hadi Alodid, the Sudanese man charged with the attempted murder of Stephen Ogilvie, 44, who lost an eye and suffered life-changing injuries in a knife attack in Belfast.
That at least one other migrant was on the bus with me for the same purpose is testament to the extent to which this route has become, in the words of one former immigration officer, "a gaping hole... through the Irish border" that "makes a mockery of our system".
In this case, the man planned to immediately claim asylum on arrival in Belfast. Advertisement Advertisement
Our coach, one of dozens travelling from Dublin to Belfast each day, was not stopped by Gardai or immigration services as it crossed the invisible - and very porous - border between Ireland and the United Kingdom.
When we arrived in Belfast, the asylum seeker, who refused to give his name and would only say he was from the Middle East, pointed to the next item on his itinerary, likely to have been drawn up by people smugglers making vast profits by facilitating the safe passage of migrants to the UK.
"Where is Drumkeen House?" he asked, struggling to find the English. "There, I claim asylum." He waved and set off on the 15-minute walk in the rain to the Home Office's base and passport office in Belfast.
The 104-mile motorway journey that Alodid, 30, took after a flight from France is being used as the "backdoor route" into Britain.
The bus driver taking us from Dublin to Belfast on Wednesday admitted that "there are always" apparent asylum seekers on his coach.
Steve Bird disembarks the Translink X1 bus in Belfast - Paul Grover
"I had two Somali guys yesterday on the same run," he said. "It could be wrong to judge appearances, but they just looked a bit dishevelled. They had a little backpack, that was it." The behaviour of the men followed a familiar pattern. "They travel from Dublin to Belfast. They often seem lost.
They ask me where this or that is. Advertisement Advertisement
"It seems when they arrive here, they haven't a clue where they are going.
They just go around asking the high-vis guys in the bus terminal." A second man, who, like the 25-year-old from the Middle East, embarked at Dublin Airport, appeared to match the driver's description too.
Many migrants seeking to enter the UK from Ireland start from Dublin's central bus station, called the Busaras, or the airport, the second stop on the route. The huge posters in the Busaras waiting area could well be reassuring to any asylum seeker seeking safe passage to the UK. "It's plain sailing to the UK," one advert declares, alongside a picture of a big red bus, and outlines of Big Ben and the London Eye.
Using a loophole known as the "Irish route", migrants can enter Britain from Ireland by taking advantage of the so-called Common Travel Area (CTA), which allows free movement across the border without routine immigration checks.
Rather than paying thousands of pounds for perilous passage across the Channel on a small boat to reach the UK, if they can make it to Dublin, all they then require is a GBP15 bus ticket to Belfast. The bus travels along the main highway connecting the two cities, which crosses the border close to the South Armagh town of Jonesborough.
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The open border that has long been hailed as a welcome sign of peace, however, is now a source of fresh political anguish, given that Alodid is thought to have been among many foreign nationals using this route to cross into the UK illegally.
Vehicles drive across the open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland on Tuesday - Paulo Nunes dos Santos for The Telegraph
The Irish government has refused to disclose how Alodid entered Ireland, but immigration experts believe he would have required a visa issued by Irish immigration authorities to secure a boarding pass to fly to Dublin from France. Hundreds, if not thousands, of migrants are believed to have made similar journeys in recent years - many of them assisted by people-smugglers, who tout the "Irish route" on websites advertising their services.
A former immigration officer says that crossing into Northern Ireland from the south to claim asylum "has been going on for a very long time". "Whilst we try to maintain a thin blue line to border control, it makes a mockery of our system," the source tells The Telegraph. "We do not have a thin blue line - we have a gaping hole in it through the Irish border.
It is a security risk to the UK, and it makes it easier for those who wish to do the UK harm to enter."
Numerous coach companies run services from Dublin to Belfast, with the Translink X1 service charging just EUR17 (GBP14.67) for a one-way ticket. The driver laughed at the suggestion that I might need to show my passport on the journey. "You won't be needing that," he said. "Immigration used to do checks, but I've not seen any of late." Advertisement
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Only two people boarded the coach from Dublin's bus station, but about a dozen weary travellers were waiting when the bus arrived at the airport 25 minutes later.
While most of those passengers were sporting sun tans and lugging suitcases and bags of duty-free shopping, two men - travelling separately - stood out because they had no luggage at all. Both struggled to understand the bus driver as he asked where they were travelling. The Middle Eastern man was wearing only a grey sweater, dark trousers and trainers, despite pouring rain.
"Belfast, England.
Yes? Belfast, England," he kept saying, before spreading out an array of different euro banknotes on the tray, clearly unaware which value would cover the single fare. When told he would have to wait for change, the man raised his hands and said: "No, no.
You keep. You keep."
The other man, in his late 30s and wearing a rain-soaked padded jacket, dark trousers and trainers, also asked for a one-way ticket to Belfast. He appeared nervous, glancing around as if he was expecting someone else to arrive.
No one came. He paid with a credit card, sat down and repeatedly checked his mobile phone for messages. Once the journey was underway, he pulled his coat's hood over his head, sat on his hands and went to sleep.
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The bus travelled up the N1 motorway, one of an estimated 208 public roads, paths and dirt tracks that cross the open border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. In the absence of any checks when we crossed the invisible border, just south of Newry, one of the few hints that the bus had entered the United Kingdom was a road sign declaring: "Welcome to Northern Ireland, Speed limits in miles per hour."
The bus was in the border region of South Armagh, the picturesque patchwork of hills and farmlands that became a hotbed of Republican resistance during the Troubles - the IRA ground presence so strong that British troops could only come and go by helicopter, which earned it the nickname "Bandit Country".
Three decades on, the army watchtowers are gone and, as part of the Good Friday Agreement, the frontier is entirely open and largely unpoliced, with local border posts boarded up and long-overgrown.
Shortly after entering the UK, the older man took a short call on his iPhone. He nodded, spoke only a few words and hung up.
In 2024, the flow of migrants along the "Irish route" was briefly reversed after Britain's former Tory government announced its plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. Buses then began transporting migrants from Belfast to Dublin, the occupants preferring to take their chances in the Irish Republic rather than risk deportation to Africa.
The bus service was dubbed "The Migrant Express". Advertisement Advertisement
The UK and Irish authorities jointly run Operation Gull, aimed at tackling abuse of the CTA.
Officers have made dozens of arrests during operations in recent years, but critics claim the initiative can never do more than scratch the surface of the problem.
Protesters gather in Southampton after a Sudanese migrant was connected to an attempted beheading in Belfast - Andrew Matthews/PA Wire
Peadar Toibin, leader of Aontu, one of the Republic's few immigration-sceptic parties, says: "Because of the Common Travel Area [CTA], any migrant can move with ease from the south of Ireland to the north of Ireland, then to Britain. In effect, Ireland and Britain have a wide-open back door that makes it impossible to manage the flow of people."
Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, adds that the CTA "worked well for decades because UK and Irish border officials made sure that anyone arriving in one country intending to travel to the other was properly documented and would be accepted at their final destination". Now, with Ireland part of the EU's free movement system and the UK having left it, "that arrangement has broken down".
"The absence of a border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic now means someone can get to Ireland from another EU state, effectively enter unchecked, then make their way to the UK and claim asylum," says Mehmet. "This is a serious, dangerous hole in our controls which must, quickly, be addressed."
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A Northern Ireland intelligence source says that some migrants "might have five or six different aliases. So it's a hell of a job for any bureaucracy to keep a tab on them - border forces or even the security services.
It can be very difficult to figure out if they have backgrounds in terrorism."
Like Britain, Ireland is seen as a relatively welcoming country for asylum seekers. In the UK, most foreign nationals can only claim conventional welfare benefits such as Universal Credit after five years of residency. In Ireland, foreign nationals must simply satisfy a "habitual residence" test before claiming benefits, which advocacy groups claim can make asylum seekers eligible for welfare payments after just two or more years.
As the Middle Eastern man asked me where he could exchange his remaining euros for sterling - before heading in the direction of Drumkeen House - the older man set off on his own through the heavy rain.
Before boarding the bus in Dublin, I spoke to some Eritrean, Somali and Sudanese migrants queuing up outside a homeless shelter in the hope of getting a bed for the night.
One young Sudanese man, who refused to give his name, said: "I have travelled for years. There is a war in my home country of Sudan. I am a young man and fled.
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Asked where he eventually wanted to stay, he said: "At the moment, I stay in Dublin.
It is good here." A Somali man in his 20s said he had fled his homeland because of military conflicts and political unrest. "There is no work," he said, before pointing at each of his half a dozen friends in the queue. "We are young men, we have to work. We travelled to Europe to find work."
The men were well aware of the riots taking place in Belfast after the attack on Monday night. "What was done was terrible," another man said. "That is not us."
A taxi driver waiting for fares outside the bus station said the city had seen a marked increase in the number of migrants in recent years. "I see them arriving here," he said. "It's very common. They get papers and then board buses out of Dublin."
Additional reporting by Colin Freeman and Cameron Henderson
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