Asylum seekers should be electronically tagged so they can be tracked, a policing chief has suggested.
Katy Bourne, the Police and Crime Commissioner for Sussex, has proposed they are used on male asylum seekers set to be housed at a military training camp in the area.
She urged Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to ‘be bold’ and use the arrival of 540 asylum seekers at Crowborough Training Camp as a ‘pilot’ to see if the scheme helps discourage crime.
Ms Bourne suggested the move would deter migrants from criminality – while also giving them ‘greater freedom’ to travel further from holding centres and get temporary employment.
She drew a comparison with a ‘promising’ trial scheme launched earlier in 2025 where Sussex Police tagged persistent shoplifters.
Ms Bourne added: ‘The police monitoring the tags can tell exactly where the offenders are and, so far, the shoplifters are changing their behaviours.’
The PCC said if people refused to wear a tag ‘it would be an indication that they are intending to abscond or are involved in unlawful activity’.
Speaking to BBC Sussex, she added: ‘With thousands of people awaiting asylum processing, the potential for them to become involved in crime – as a perpetrator or victim – is inevitable, meaning police will be looking for people with very little official ID or existing digital footprint in the UK.’
‘I have a New Year’s resolution for the Home Secretary – why not be bold and pilot tagging of the men due to arrive soon at Crowborough?’
‘You might end up being thanked by taxpayers, the police and the migrants themselves.’
Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne has dared Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to use the arrival of 540 asylum seekers into Crowborough Training Camp as a ‘pilot’ to see if electronic tagging discourages crimeÂ
Multiple protests have been held against the government’s plans to house 540 asylum seekers at Crowborough training camp in Sussex
Bourne said the results of Sussex Police’s Operation STOP pilot were ‘promising’, adding that, so far, shoplifters are ‘changing their behaviours’
Currently the Immigration Act 2016 requires electronic monitoring to be applied to individuals facing deportation, unless doing so would breach their human rights or is impractical, the Home Office said.
The Tories backed Ms Bourne’s proposals, with shadow home secretary Chris Philp telling the Daily Mail that ‘anything that keeps tabs better on these illegal immigrants is welcome, especially given the sex crimes they commit against women and girls’.
He added: ‘The government response to Katy’s tagging plan says that tagging illegal immigrants in asylum accommodation would break their human rights.
‘What about the human rights of the women and girls who have been raped and sexually assaulted by illegal immigrants living in asylum accommodation?
‘The government doesn’t seem to care about their rights.’
However, Philp suggested while this is a welcome measure, leaving the ECHR would ultimately ‘allow all illegal immigrants to be deported within a week of arriving, with no court hearings or delays’.
He added that Labour is ‘too weak to do that’.
Tory MP for East Grinstead and Uckfield Mims Davies said: ‘Many of my constituents feel exactly the same as the Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner Katy Bourne in wanting those in our community to be tagged and they be tracked and registered properly. and believe we should find a way.’
Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage told the Daily Mail that Bourne’s proposals are ‘not the answer’ as ‘none of these men should be free to roam the streets’.
Both the Conservatives and Reform UK have said they would quit the ECHR as part of efforts to tackle immigration.
Despite her party’s vow to ‘welcome’ migrants, Green deputy leader Rachel Millward has voiced opposition to the housing of asylum seekers in Crowborough.
In a letter to the Home Office sent in October, Millward said her ‘strong objection’ to the use of Crowborough training camp for housing migrants was based on ‘safety’ fears for both locals and asylum seekers themselves.
The Home Office has since confirmed a decision on whether to house the asylum seekers in the military site will be taken in the new year.
Millward said Bourne ‘should know better’ in proposing asylum seekers wear electronic tags ‘given that it was under the previous Conservative government that tagging asylum seekers was trialled and found unlawful’.