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Press Releases for May 2006
May 25, 2006
Amnesty for illegals ‘no answer’ to failure of immigration policy
May 15, 2006
UK should not 'go it alone' over opening Labour market to Romania and Bulgaria
May 11, 2006
Migration Watch Response to ITEM Club Report on the “Benefits” of East European Immigration
Full Text of Releases : May 2006
May 25, 2006
Amnesty for illegals ‘no answer’ to failure of immigration policy
An amnesty for illegal immigrants is not the answer to the crisis facing the UK and should be firmly rejected because it would simply make the existing problem worse, says a new report out today.
The Migrationwatch report examined the experience of the UK and Europe
(see report) and finds that in comparable countries where amnesties have been tried the only effect has been increased numbers at each amnesty.
In the past 20 years Italy has granted five amnesties and Spain six. The result has been to replace those granted an amnesty with others willing to work at or below the minimum wage so creating a downward spiral of opportunity for unskilled workers.
In the case of Spain an amnesty in 1985/6, involved 44,000 people. Five amnesties later (2005) the number was 700,000. Once admitted to an EU country there is nothing stopping those people travelling freely throughout continental Europe.
Migrationwatch estimate that the illegal population in the UK is in the range 515,000 to 870,000.[1]
‘The clear evidence is that amnesties make a bad situation worse. They are also extremely expensive for the tax payer. For a start, an amnesty would add half a million people to the housing lists as the local authorities would become responsible for their housing. It is also quite wrong in principle to reward illegal behaviour with full access to the welfare state,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman.’
He said that, while it would not be possible to enforce the removal of such large numbers, a much better and cheaper approach was “reduction by attrition”. The key lay in the labour market since most illegal immigrants come initially to work and send money home. It was essential to enforce the new penalties for employers of illegal labour who were often exploiting illegal immigrants. The overall effect of illegal working was to hold down the wages of low paid British workers. The present chaos was bad for them and bad for our society as a whole.
‘At present the record of enforcement in Britain is incredibly poor. In the period 1997 - 2003 only nine employers were found guilty of employing an illegal immigrant. In 2004 only 3,332 illegal migrant workers were detected in Home Office operations,’ he said.
Stronger powers to penalise employers who employ (knowingly or otherwise) individuals who are illegally in Britain have just come into force.
‘However, the effectiveness of this change in the law is undermined by the Government’s admission that very few full time immigration officers will be dedicated to its enforcement,’ said Sir Andrew.
‘A greater focus on implementing the new laws will have far more effect than the ‘fools gold’ of an amnesty that is bound to fail.’
[1] Migrationwatch Briefing Paper: 9.15. (www.migrationwatch.org)
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May 15, 2006
UK should not 'go it alone' over opening Labour market to Romania and Bulgaria
The arrival of very large numbers of Romanian and Bulgarian workers in the UK is a distinct possibility if the Government is one of a handful of EU states to ‘go it alone’ and again allows unrestricted access to the UK labour market to these countries when they join the EU as expected next January, says a new report out today. Read report.
Using the same methodology that the Department of Work and Pensions applied in assessing the relationship between the level of GDP per head in the new EU member states and the propensity to enter the UK labour market, think tank Migrationwatch has estimated that the numbers coming to the UK from these two countries could be 300,000 or more in the first 20 months. This should not be taken as a prediction, rather as an indication that the numbers could be very considerable.
‘These two countries will add another 30 million to the population of the EU. If the UK is again the only major EU country not to impose a transitional arrangement, further substantial immigration is to be expected,’ said Sir Andrew Green, Migrationwatch chairman. ‘The public realise that we cannot absorb unlimited immigration on a small crowded island. That is why 76% of us wish to see an annual limit to immigration. It is, therefore, essential that the Government wait for the decisions of the other major European countries before committing themselves.’
Sir Andrew said that the Migrationwatch estimate was based on the Government’s own methodology and is supported by the independent calculations of UCL Statistics Professor, Mervyn Stone.
‘We have to remember that, when the last batch of countries joined the EU two years ago, the government estimated that net migration to the UK would be between 5 and 13,000. Yet, in the period May 2004 - December 2005, there were no less than 345,000 applicants to the Worker Registration Scheme which applies to workers from the new member states. These figures do not include self-employed workers. Even allowing for a significant proportion returning home, the net migration will be many times the government estimate.
Sir Andrew said that in Romania and Bulgaria GDP per head, at $7,700 and $8,200 respectively, was less than a third of that in the UK which was $29,600. Unemployment was also higher – at 7% and 12% – compared to 5.1% in the UK. The recent IPPR estimate of 56,000 new migrants in the first year took no account of this greater poverty despite the evidence that it is a major driver.
‘These amount to strong ‘pull factors’. It is not the role of the UK to shoulder alone the full weight of a potentially very large influx.'
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May 11, 2006
Migration Watch Response to ITEM Club Report on the “Benefits” of East European Immigration
A report out today by Migrationwatch suggests that the recent ITEM Club report on the "benefits of the new immigration" from Western Europe was far more negative than first realised. (Read Report) It pointed to the loss of 50,000 jobs by British workers by 2010 with virtually no benefit to the host community.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said that "this report made two extraordinary mistakes. It omitted entirely the question of dependants and it took no account of the way in which this immigration adds to our population. It is true that wage inflation and interest rates will be lower but, overall, the report found that unemployment would rise by 50,000. Most of those who lose their jobs will be British workers who, as the report remarked, find it more difficult to find another job. What is more, the addition to production is counter-balanced by the extra population so that in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per head there is no significant benefit to British people. Cheap labour is good for employers and the middle classes but we must also be clear about the impact on our economy as a whole and, especially, on the low paid"
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