Migration Watch UK: News

Family Permits for EU Citizens in Britain

A paper issued today by Migration Watch UK reveals that 100,000 dependants of EU nationals resident in Britain entered the UK in the last five years with no conditions attached but with full and immediate access to benefits.

The government’s reform of the Immigration Rules require British citizens to be earning £18,600 before they can bring in a spouse from outside the EU so as to avoid any cost to the taxpayer.   However, under EU law, they are obliged to provide favourable treatment to EU citizens including those who may never have been resident here prior to moving with their non-EU family.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said “This is a loophole that must be closed and soon.   It is absurd that EU citizens should be in a more favourable position than our own citizens.  Furthermore, 20,000 per year is a very large number to admit unconditionally, especially compared to the government’s target of tens of thousands for annual net migration.

Notes to Editors:

1 More precisely, this applies to EEA nationals.

2 Example: French or Polish citizens living in the UK can marry someone from anywhere in the world and can bring him or her to the UK even if they do not have a job and cannot support their spouse whereas a British citizen must now be earning £18,600 a year.

3 Examples of Abuse – An Indian national from Goa can obtain Portuguese citizenship if their parents were Portuguese citizens prior to 1961. They can then move straight to the UK with their family using an EEA family permit.  On arrival they can avail themselves, immediately, of all the benefits available to UK citizens. There is anecdotal evidence that this has been happening quite extensively. Many settle in Swindon, where around 9,000 Goans now live.

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Convicted Foreign Criminals and the Right to Family Life

The paper which appears below under the title “Convicted foreign criminals and the right to family life (2)” was completed on 13 February 2013.  It is appropriate to precede it with further comments following the Home Secretary’s article on the subject which appeared in The Mail on Sunday on 17 February.  The Home Secretary accuses the judges of disregarding the will of Parliament in failing to implement the provisions of HC 194 (see below for an explanation of HC 194) when considering appeals against deportation by convicted foreign criminals.  Her anger appears to have been provoked by three recent decisions of the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber), the most recent of which is discussed below. One of her complaints is that “some judges seem to believe that they can ignore Parliament’s wishes if they think that the procedures for parliamentary scrutiny have been weak”.  This appears to be a reference to another case Izuazu [2013] UKUT 45. The way Immigration Rules are made is explained in legal briefing paper 8.63.  Under the provisions of section 3(2) of the Immigration Act 1971 they are subject to approval by both Houses of Parliament by the negative resolution procedure.  The Rules contained in HC 194 went through this procedure in June 2012 and were debated at some length by the House of Commons.  However, the Tribunal in Izuazu made a disparaging and unjustifiable reference to this procedure by saying that it “provided a weak form of Parliamentary scrutiny” (paragraph 49).

See the full Briefing Paper No 8.69

Benefits for Overseas Children Cost UK Taxpayer £1 million per week

The taxpayer is forking out over £1 million per week in child benefit to the parents whose children who do not even live in the UK, the think tank Migration Watch UK reveals today in a new Briefing Paper.

The revelation comes following the disclosure that child benefit and tax credits are paid in respect of almost 50,000 children who live across the EU.

The majority, almost 30,000, of the 50,000 children who receive child benefit and child tax credits at UK rates live in Poland.

Child benefit in the UK is worth £81.20 per month for the first child and £53.60 for the second and subsequent  children.  This is roughly four times higher than Polish rates.

Only in the UK, Czech Republic, Germany, Latvia and the Netherlands do the rules allow child benefit to be paid for children who live elsewhere in the EU. The remaining 22 countries require that the child be resident in the territory in order to qualify.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said, ‘It is absurd that child benefit is paid to children who do not even live in the UK. At a time that UK taxpayers are being asked to tighten their belts, the government is paying out over £1 million per week to support children in other countries where costs are, in any case, often much lower. The majority of EU countries have the good sense to ensure that the child in question must be resident in that country in order to qualify and it is about time the UK did the same.’

Note to Editors:

See Parliamentary Question, Mr Keith Vaz, 28 January 2013, Column 619W,  

Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria

Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria could amount to 50,000 a year in the first five years.  That is the conclusion of a study issued by Migration Watch UK today.  250,000 is the population of a city of the size of Plymouth or Newcastle. That number could be considerably higher if there were to be a movement of Roma to the UK or if some of the nearly one million Romanians in both Spain and Italy should transfer to Britain.

The government have so far declined to publish their own estimate. They are very conscious of the previous government’s catastrophic under estimate of immigration from Poland and other East European countries in 2004 which Migrationwatch described at the time as “almost worthless”.

This time round, with the experience of the East Europeans in mind, it is possible to offer a ball park estimate of likely immigration from Romania and Bulgaria.  As it happens their income per head is about 1/5^th of that of the UK – as was the case for Poland in 2004.  Furthermore their youth unemployment is very high as was also the case in Poland when they joined the EU and both countries now have established communities in Britain.

The major difference this time is that all other EU countries will also have to open their labour markets to Romania and Bulgaria in January 2014.  Fifteen smaller countries and Italy have already done so. As for larger countries, with youth unemployment in Spain at 56%, Italy at 37% and France at 27% it would seem that only Germany at 8% and the Netherlands at 9.7% are likely destinations for Romanian and Bulgarian migrants. Britain, with youth unemployment at 20%, is nonetheless an attractive destination partly because of its flexible labour market and partly because of the ease of access to its benefits system.

After examining three different methods of estimating the likely inflow of migrants from Romania and Bulgaria, Migration Watch UK has concluded that they would add between 30,000 and 70,000 to our population in each of the next 5 years – giving a central estimate of 50,000 per year. Claims in Parliament that there could be “an increase of some one third of a million over present levels, possibly within two years” seem exaggerated. However, the number of Roma who might come to Britain is a wild card.

A further wild card is the presence of nearly 1 million Romanians in Spain among whom nearly 1/3^rd of a million workers were unemployed in 2011. Even if they had access to unemployment pay in Spain their benefits would run out after one year. There must, therefore, be a significant risk that they will move to Britain where access to benefits does not depend on contributions – only on “habitual residence” which, in practice, is easily acquired. 

One finding of the analysis is that the International Passenger Survey, the basis of the official immigration statistics, only picked up half of the East European immigration to the UK. If this is repeated the official figure for net immigration, which the government are committed to reducing to tens of thousands, would be increased by only 25,000 rather than 50,000 a year.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch said “It is not good enough to duck making an estimate of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria. It is likely to be on a scale that will have significant consequences for housing and public services. It will also add further to the competition which young British workers already face. We have therefore produced our own estimate as a contribution to an important debate which must include the ease with which migrants to the UK can currently access the welfare state”.

Right to Family Life – New Immigration Rules

The Home Office has recently promulgated a document running to 45 pages which substantially amends those paragraphs of the Immigration Rules which relate to family life. In this paper I am concentrating on those amendments which relate to the ability of convicted immigrant criminals to plead in accordance with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) that deporting them would not be compatible with their right to family life.  Cases in which such pleas have been successful have caused much public concern and sometimes anger in recent months.

To read the full document go to Briefing Paper No 8.63

Family and employment matters – legal notes

1. Abolition of family visit appeals.

(i)   The Crime and Courts Bill had its second reading in the House of Lords on 28 May. Its main purpose is to establish the new National Crime Agency, but among its other miscellaneous provisions are two which are intended to make changes in the immigration appeals system.  The important one of these two is Clause 24, the purpose of which is to abolish the right of appeal against refusal of a visa for a family visit. Such visas are granted for six months and applicants are required to show that while in the UK they will have enough money to support themselves without working and without recourse to public funds.

(ii)   At present a person whose application for a visit visa has been refused has a full right of appeal. The right was removed in 1993 but was restored in 2000. Provision was made in the legislation for charging for the bringing appeals, but this was later abandoned. There were 49,000 such appeals in the financial year 2010/2011 at a cost of £29 million.

To see the full Briefing Paper No 8.62 click here.

The Impact of Immigration on Maternity Services in England

Summary

1  Between 2000 and 2010 births in England increased by over 114,000 – from 572,826 to 687,007.   Immigration has been the key factor fuelling this increase: three quarters of the increase in births was to women born outside the UK. Overall, in 2010, over a quarter of all live births in England were to mothers born abroad. The proportion of such births has grown consistently every year in succession since 1990, doubling over the past decade – from approximately 92,000 in 2000 to almost 180,000 in 2010 – this is nearly 500 on average every day

2  Midwife numbers have not kept pace with the overall growth in numbers of births because governments before 2010 permitted high levels of net migration without making sure that maternity services received adequate staffing; consequently, there has been an acknowledged severe shortage of midwives for several years which has, in turn, led to concern about the quality of midwife services. Key indicators of pressures on maternity services and the resulting shortfall in midwives are shown in Table 1 of the complete Briefing Paper No 5.10 on Migration Watch UK's web site. 

Press Release: Comment by Kiran Bali on Changes to Family Migration

11 June, 2012

In response to today's oral statement by the Home Secretary Theresa May on family migration, Kiran Bali MBE, Advisory Council member of Migration Watch UK said:

"This is a very valuable step forward. We must do everything possible to ensure that new migrants are able to integrate successfully into our society. Integration is enhanced by economic well-being, a common language, and an understanding of UK life. The measures announced today will help communities to tackle these important and sensitive issues."

Immigration – How to Achieve the Government’s Target

28 May, 2012

The real problem with immigration is that non-EU migrants are failing to return home. That is the conclusion of a study published today by Migration Watch UK.

Over the past ten years non-EU migrants have been arriving at the rate of about 300,000 a year but have only been leaving at about 100,00 a year.

The Migration Watch UK paper suggests the following policy measures:

• Increase enforcement on employers of illegal workers
• Enforce planning regulations
• Re-examine further Leave to Remain
• Limit visitor visas to three months
• Redefine “family visitors” and remove rights of appeal
• Increase the detention estate

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said: “The most recent immigration statistics are very disappointing, but the central issue has largely been misunderstood in recent public discussion. Migrants are, of course, welcome but they should leave at the end of their stay. In many cases this is simply not happening. The government must focus on a range of measures to ensure their departure.”

Family migration; overwhelming support for reform

The public overwhelmingly support the government’s key proposals for the reform of family migration. That was the result of an opinion poll published by Migration Watch UK today.

83% supported the suggestion that British immigration officers should interview applicants in their own country to make sure that the relationship is a genuine one. The poll found strong support for this policy, across all three major parties voters – Conservatives 88%, Labour 81%, Lib Dem 81%. It was also the case across social grade and region. Only 8% of British adults oppose.

Asked about raising the required level of English language so that applicants would have to show that they could understand everyday English, there was even stronger support. 93% were in favour and only 4% opposed. Again, strong support was consistent across all three major party voters, social grade and region with 93% of Lib Dem voters from the 2010 general election in favour.

Respondents were also asked whether they favoured increasing the minimum income before a person in the UK may bring in a partner from overseas from the present level of £5,500 a year to £18,000 a year. 80% favoured this policy with 13% opposed. Again, strong support was found consistently across all three political parties, and across social grades and regions.

The poll was based on a robust sample of over 2,000 respondents and was conducted by YouGov between 29 February and 2 March.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK said, “These are stunning results. They are a huge public endorsement of the proposals that the government has put forward”.

Notes to Editors All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2,287 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 29th February - 2nd March 2012. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all GB adults (aged 18+).