Migration Watch UK: News

New Immigration Rules

Interview with migrationwatch UK on Damian Green’s new #Immigration Rules. youtube.com/watch?v=8eNI13…

 

Taxpayer Funds £1m a week UK Visitor Appeals Process - ‘Outrageously Generous System’ Must End Says Think Tank

The present situation, in which anyone refused a visa to visit family in the UK can appeal at no expense to themselves, is now costing the UK taxpayers some £50m a year and must be brought to an end immediately, says think tank Migration Watch UK in a report (Briefing Paper No 1.31) out today.

All charges for appeals against the refusal of a visa were abolished by the Labour Government in 2002 - since then the number of appeals has increased six fold to nearly a thousand a week - at a weekly cost of £1m.

‘At a time of severe financial stringency for UK families it is an outrageously generous system which taxpayers should no longer be expected to fund,’ said Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch. ‘It should be stopped immediately, the definition of “family visitor” tightened, charges reintroduced and consideration given to bonds to ensure people actually leave at the end of their visit. We hope that the government’s measures to be announced next week will deal with these issues.’

He said that the definition of family visitor is so wide that it could include as many as 120 relatives of a middle aged person in Britain. And a "family visitor" can generally appeal against refusal even if the applicant intends to do something else also during the trip as the legislation does not specify that visiting a family member has to be the sole or primary purpose of the trip.

Said Sir Andrew. ‘The government have at last seemed to realise that it is ludicrous and grossly unfair that taxpayers are expected to foot the bill for foreign citizens who wish to visit Britain. In these straightened times there are much better uses for our money.’

He said that because of the well known inadequacies of the UK’s immigration system - in particular, its failure to record departures and poor record in removing people with no right to be here - there is a strong suspicion that this method is also used as yet another route to staying on illegally in Britain.

Sir Andrew said that of particular concern was the rapid growth of applications from certain countries. In 2006 India, Pakistan and Nigeria produced over ¼ million applications - up by a factor of 16 over a period of four years. 175,000 were approved. The numbers have remained high; in 2010 applications from these three countries totalled 196,000 of which 151,000 were approved. The worldwide total in 2010 was 423,000 of which 338,000 were approved.

‘The whole issue of immigration and asylum was so ineptly handled by the previous administration that it will inevitably take time to reverse some of its most woeful decisions but this must surely be one of the easier ones to accomplish and should be a high priority for Ministers,’ said Sir Andrew.

Petition Demand for Public’s Voice to be Heard on Immigration

Migration Watch UK have today launched an e-petition calling on the government to stabilise the population of the UK and, certainly, to keep it well below 70 million.The new official population projections issued last week show our population hitting 70 million in 16 years. This is on the assumption that net immigration will continue at 200,000 a year compared to almost 240,000 last year. The UK population was last estimated in 2010 at 62.3 million.

This population increase of more than 7 million is the equivalent of building seven cities the size of Birmingham or fourteen the size of Manchester or Bristol and about two thirds of it (just over 5 million) will be due to future immigration.  Immigration will have to be sharply reduced to about 40,000 a year to stabilise our population.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said ‘Labour permitted foreign immigration of over three million in the face of strongly opposed public opinion. Politicians need reminding that this is an issue that is consistently one of the top concerns of voters and that it must be addressed, and soon. It is time to stop listening to those who support and, often, make money from the immigration ‘industry’ and consider the views of the people most directly affected. This, at last, is an opportunity for the man in the street to make his views heard where it counts.’

Notes to Editors:

1 The terms of the e-petition are:

"Over the past ten years the government has permitted mass immigration despite very strong public opposition reflected in numerous opinion polls.  We express our deep concern that, according to official figures, the population of the UK is now expected to reach 70 million within 20 years with two thirds of the increase due to immigration. While we recognise the benefits that properly controlled immigration could bring to our economy and society, this population increase, which is the equivalent of building seven cities the size of Birmingham, will have a huge impact both on our quality of life and on our public services yet the public has never been consulted. So we call on the government to take all necessary steps to get immigration down to a level that will stabilise our population as close to the present level as possible and, certainly, well below 70 million."

2 100,000 signatures are required for the e-petition to be sent to the Back Bench Committee to be considered for a debate in Parliament.

3 The e-petition can be found at: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/19658

4 The 2010-based Population Projections can be found at: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_235886.pdf

The Prime Minister’s Speech on Immigration

Comment by Alp Mehmet, Vice Chairman, Migration Watch UK

10 October, 2011

This is the Prime Minister's second speech on immigration in six months showing he clearly means business. We wholeheartedly support this. It is refreshing that he recognises that the Points Based System is a 'box ticking exercise'.

Work Permit and Settlement

Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch, and Scott Blinder of Oxford's Migration Observatory debate the Home Office proposals for Work Permit and Settlement. Listen to the debate from 1.06 on BBC Radio 5Live's iPlayer at http://bbc.in/lncYCM

Comment on Home Office Proposals on Settlement

In response to the proposals published by the Home Office in their consultation on Employment-Related Settlement, Tier 5 and Overseas Domestic Workers, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migration Watch UK commented:

"This is excellent news. There will now be a real incentive for employers to train British workers rather than continue to take skilled foreign workers 'off the shelf' so as to avoid training costs."

A Quarter of a Million Failed Asylum Seekers Granted Amnesty

Summary

1 The latest (and largest) exercise in granting settlement to failed asylum seekers is the continuation of a sorry tradition of amnesties that has resulted in over 250,000 failed asylum seekers being granted settlement since the early 1990s. Once settlement is achieved additional dependants can then join the person in the UK so the total number is likely to be much higher. It is now essential for the integrity of the immigration system that no more backlogs are allowed to develop.

Current Amnesty

2 During the late 1990s and early 2000s the Home Office allowed the build up of a backlog of around 400,000 cases. The exercises to clear these legacy cases resulted in 161,000 grants of settlement (ILR)…

See the full Briefing Paper No 11.25.

Why is the BBC STILL so hideously biased on immigration?

By Sir Andrew Green
Chairman of Migration Watch UK
The Daily Mail, London, 15 April, 2011

David Cameron has just made the most important speech on immigration of any Prime Minister for many years.

He tackled the subject in a frank, open, comprehensive and factual manner, while remaining sensitive to the delicacy of the issues.

He set out a clear aim — to get net immigration down to tens of thousands — while disposing of the myth that EU migration would render this impossible.

He didn't shy away from describing the widespread abuse in the immigration system, whether by forced or sham marriages, bogus students, dodgy colleges, or dubious work permits.

This was a very significant contribution from a national leader addressing a sensitive issue that troubles a huge number of people in this country.

Yet if you had listened to Radio 4 you would not have known it. Their treatment of this story was abysmal.

To read the full article go to Press Articles.

Cap on Economic Migration Will Have a Limited Effect

The Government’s cap on economic migration which comes into effect on 6 April will have only a limited effect on net migration in the medium term but it could become a barrier against future increases in economic migration. That is the conclusion of a paper published today by Migrationwatch.

Brussels Leak Reveals Britain to Take Major Share of Indian IT Workers

Documents leaked from the European Commission reveal the true state of negotiations with India for the preferential admission of IT workers to the EU. The UK's quota for some worker categories 40% of the entire EU commitment – almost three times that of Germany and almost seven times that of France.

The Commission is preparing to offer India 35,000 to 50,000 work permits per year, for the categories of Independent Professionals (IPs) and Contractual Service Suppliers (CSS). This offer is part of the response to Indian demands for labour access, within the negotiations for an EU/India Free Trade Agreement being held in secret.

While this is a figure for the number of visas the EU commits to offering, it does not limit how many a member state actually offers.

An unidentified number of visas for a further category, 'Intracorporate Transferees' (ICTs), that is workers brought in to work for their Indian company in the EU, will be additional to these disproportionate quotas for the UK in the CSS and IP categories.

With the Prime Minister's announcement this week that ICTs will be excluded from the government’s 'immigration cap', numbers for this category will not be subject to a limit.

The breakdown between member states has been based on the share of the working population of each member state in the relevant sectors and on the share of member states in the total number of work permits granted to Indian migrants in the past by EU members, taken together. The effect of this is that Britain's quota is 40% of the total while the UK population is only 12% of the EU. Britain would be committed to up to 20,000, Germany 7,000, France 3,000 and Italy 2,600.

A footnote to the document reveals that some countries have insisted on a cap to Indian workers - ironically, most of them are new East European members.

The negotiations are now well advanced and a deal may be finalised in next week's negotiating Round.

Said Sir Andrew Green, Chairman Migrationwatch UK: ‘This looks suspiciously like a side door to Britain for 15,000 - 20,000 Indian IT workers every year. It is even more astonishing coming at a time when British IT workers are finding it increasingly difficult to find employment and there is a 17% unemployment rate amongst computer science graduates who left university last year. It is time to end the secrecy and for the government to come clean with what is going on and what, if any, safeguards are being put in place.’

See also Briefing Paper No 4.13