HOME Secretary Suella Braverman is considering a new raft of punishing actions against “illegal” refugees and asylum-seekers including electronic tagging used on criminals.

Home Office officials have been instructed to investigate “all options” as government failure to process asylum claims saw the backlog rise to 170,000.

She warned of yet more anti-asylum tactics as the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) prepared legal action against the use of the Bibby Stockholm barge moored in Dorset to house 500 asylum-seekers, saying the barge is a “potential death trap.”

The Times reported that electronic tagging was being considered. When asked if this was true Ms Braverman declined to deny it.

Ms Braverman told Sky News: “We need to exercise a level of control of people if we’re to remove them from the United Kingdom.

“We are considering a range of options. We have a couple of thousand detention places in our existing removal capacity.

“We will be working intensively to increase that but it’s clear we’re exploring a range of options, all options, to ensure that we have that level of control over people so that they can flow through our systems swiftly to enable us to thereafter remove them from the United Kingdom.”

If electronic tagging goes ahead, it will likely be through contracts with outsourcing giants with a track record of defrauding the public.

In 2019 security firm Serco was fined £19.2 million for making fraudulent claims for money for tagging criminals, including for people who were dead, were back in prison or who had moved abroad.

In 2020 security firm G4S was fined £44m by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as part of an agreement to avoid prosecution for overcharging the Ministry of Justice for the electronic tagging of offenders, some of whom had died.

Weyman Bennett, co-convener of Stand Up To Racism, said: “Tagging is what you do to animals, not to human beings.”

He condemned the treatment of refugees and asylum-seekers by Ms Braverman and the government as “vicious and vindictive.

“Refugees have escaped from persecution and torture and suffer from the anguish, and treating them as subhuman is appalling, and we should reject it,” he said.

“They have allowed innocent people to drown and continuously vilify them.

“Their introduction of a refugee service resembling apartheid is unjust — Ukrainians are welcomed if they seek asylum while individuals from the Middle East, Africa or South America are treated as criminals.”

He accused Ms Braverman and the government of “a new low.”

“The government’s disregard for human rights is evident as they aim to fuel racial tensions for their own political gain,” he said.

“They have blood on their hands and treat people like mere commodities, stripping them of their humanity.

“We must fight against this with all our might, despite the government’s ongoing propaganda.

“Many people still welcome refugees, despite the government’s far-right and racist policies.

“It is crucial to acknowledge that these policies are not effective.

“We must unite against this disgraceful situation.”

The FBU has sent a “pre-action protocol letter” to Ms Braverman outlining its concerns over safety aboard the Bibby Stockholm barge moored in Dorset’s Portland Port.

The first asylum-seekers placed on board earlier this month were removed days later after tests revealed Legionella — the bacteria which can cause the potentially fatal Legionnaires’ disease.

But Ms Braverman told BBC Breakfast: “Let me be clear that I’m confident barges are safe.”