Migration Watch UK: News

Sir Andrew Green: 10 Reasons our Visa System is Rotten to the Core

Commentary in The Daily Mail 30 December, 2009

We got lucky - this time. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian graduate of University College London who tried to blow up a passenger aircraft over Detroit was turned down for a student visa when he applied for one in May.

He had been stupid enough to try to enrol in one of the 2,000 colleges the Government has at last realised are bogus.

But make no mistake, there are others who will succeed where he failed. Why?

Because the Government's new visa system is a disaster whose full results have yet to be seen. Yes, Abdulmutallab was stopped, but 370,000 student visas were issued last year.

How many of those were bogus students coming here to work on the black market? And how many were potential terrorists?

The simple answer is, we don't know and we may never know.

The new visa system requires a student to acquire 40 points before they are issued with a visa.

Thirty points are awarded automatically if he or she has a letter of acceptance from one of 3,000 educational institutions in Britain now licensed to issue such letters.

The other ten points are awarded if the student can show sufficient funds for the first year's fees and to live on during the year.

If they have the points, they get the visa. That's the theory. The reality, though, is that the system is rotten to the core. Here are ten reasons why. . .(See the full Daily Mail article)…

That day is not far off.

Student Visas 'A Massive Hole' in Border Controls as Numbers Top 1.5 Million in 8 Years

Nearly 3/4 of visas under the Points Based System are given to students

11/2 million students admitted in just 8 years

No checks on how many leave UK

Role of Immigration Officers severely undermined

 

A new report out today reveals that student visas are a massive loophole in our border controls. Nearly three quarters of visas issued under the Points Based System are given not to workers but students, under a system that is easily abused, badly administered and complex. Far from being “tough and flexible” as the Government claims, the new Points Based System has made a bad situation much worse.

 

The report by Migrationwatch shows that:

 

Nearly 1½ million student visas have been issued in the last 8 years. Students also account for a huge number of applications for extension. For example, between 2004 and 2007 they averaged about 140,000 per year…

 

See the Full Press Release

Service under strain as ‘Migrant a minute' registers with an NHS doctor

New research published today reveals the pressure that immigration is placing on the NHS.

The research, conducted by Migrationwatch, found that in 2007-8, 605,000 people who arrived from overseas registered with a GP in England and Wales – equivalent to one registration a minute, day and night, throughout the year. This was nearly 100,000 more than the inflow recorded in the International Migration Statistics for England and Wales for the same period. This suggests that short-term migrants (or illegal migrants) have also registered. Only 69,000 of the 605,000 were British people returning from a spell overseas.

The number of arrivals from overseas registering has increased by 50% in the past seven years but it is only in the last three years that registrations have exceeded the inflow of migrants. Of course migrants also leave. 333,000 left England and Wales in 2007-8 but this “churn” together with the additional population adds to the strains on the NHS.

These GP registration data are not precise as they are not compiled for statistical purposes. If anything, they understate the pressure of immigration on the National Health Service as those migrants who move practices within a year would not show up as arrivals from overseas. Furthermore, young men who make up a large proportion of migrants are known to be less likely to register with a GP than other groups.

There are no checks on the entitlement of those who seek to register with a GP, indeed doctors have discretion to register whoever they choose.

Five years ago, in May 2004, the Government issued proposals to exclude overseas visitors from eligibility to free NHS primary and medical services.The then Secretary of State promised “to ensure that the NHS is first and foremost for the benefit of residents in this country”. On 20 July 2009, five years later and on the last day of Parliament, the government issued proposals which included “to maintain GP discretion to determine registration to access free NHS primary care medical services along with the established principle that GPs may charge non-residents as private patients".

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch said:“This amounts to an open door to primary care which can also lead to access to secondary care. The government has been dithering while the NHS has been struggling to cope with the extra numbers resulting from mass immigration. In present financial circumstances it is surely obvious that we do not have the resources to cope with the extra ten million people now officially projected over the next 25 years – seven million as a result of immigration."

"Profile of Migration Watch"

"Alongside the TaxPayers' Alliance, MigrationWatch is one of Britain's most effective campaigning organisations.

"Its Chairman, Sir Andrew Green, has become Britain's most quoted authority on immigration questions."

See the full article