Home Secretary Theresa May has said the UK Border Agency will be split in two following revelations that hundreds of thousands of people were let into the country without appropriate checks.
She told MPs the UK Border Force would become a separate law-enforcement body with its own distinctive "ethos".
Chris Mason BBC Political corespondent reports;
Opinion polls regularly suggest immigration ranks highly among people's top political issues. One person's idea of handling it well will, of course, differ from the next person's.
The perception of a home secretary not knowing what's been going on is very damaging. So, like the Labour government before her, Theresa May has responded to these latest revelations with a demand for structural change within the civil service.
Back in 2006, her predecessor John, now Lord, Reid, described the immigration system as "not fit for purpose" and possessing "inadequate" leadership.
The changes led to the creation of the UK Border Agency, which itself will now be split in two.
Most accept the management of our borders has to be risk-based. On average, a bus load of pensioners returning home from a holiday on the Algarve is likely to pose less danger than a flight arriving from Yemen.
Equally, there is an acceptance from many that the implementation of the Home Office's ideas has to be led by those civil servants actually at the border.
But mistakes will always rebound on an incumbent secretary of state. Immigration is just one of many issues that make being home secretary one of the toughest gigs in government.
My opinion;
A usual tack for government to re-brand and shift responsibility from one set of bureaucrats to another in the vague attempt to demonstrate something constructive is being achieved.
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