IMMIGRATION CONCERN

NEWS AND VIEWS - BY SUBJECT

Quotations of news and views by subject

ASYLUM

Asylum
New law may give asylum to 22,500 refugees
Nick Fagge
Daily Express, 29 April 2009

     Controversial plans will require the UK to accept one in eight of all migrants who set foot in any of the 27 European Union countries and demand refugee status.
     It could mean an estimated 22,500 more people coming to Britain.
     Taxpayers will be expected to foot the bill for their food, accommodation and clothing, plus legal fees while they apply for international protection.
     Asylum seekers must also be given the right to work within six months of their arrival, enabling them to claim thousands of pounds in benefits if they cannot find a job. Their children must also be found school places.
     Migrants can only be detained as a last resort and must not be held in secure accommodation more than 72 hours without a judge's approval.
     The proposals, supported by Labour MEPs, are part of the EU's Common European Asylum System and will be put to the European Parliament in Strasbourg for approval.
     Last night Conservative MEP Philip Bradbourn said: "Economic migrants posing as asylum seekers would have an easy ride under these plans.
     "Once again, the EU thinks the only answer to justified immigration concerns is to take control of asylum policy. Controlling our borders is one of the most important roles of government.
     "For more than a decade, Labour has been unable to form a coherent immigration policy, but that should not justify handing it to Brussels."
     UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage said: "Brussels will soon be dictating who has the right to live and work in Britain. The EU is pushing for a common asylum and immigration policy but it is being pushed through without proper thought."
     EU member states will be forced to take refugees or face huge fines under the proposals outlined on Monday.
     Migrants will be rehoused from states "confronted with a large number of asylum applications" such as Malta, Greece, Italy and Spain's Canary Islands to larger countries such as the UK – a reversal of the rule that requires applicants to seek sanctuary in the first safe country.
     Member states would be compelled to accept a percentage of applicants in accordance with their population.
     This would mean the UK taking in 13 per cent of all refugees arriving in the EU – or 22,500 of the 322,000 average arrivals over the last 10 years.
[Site link]

Asylum
Failed asylum seekers win right to stay amid hearings 'shambles'
Chris Hastings, Alex Ralph and Ian Johnston
Sunday Telegraph, 19 April 2009

     Failed asylum seekers are winning the right to stay in Britain because of "shambolic" failings in the immigration hearing system, ...
     Hundreds of appeal hearings are going ahead without a representative from the Home Office to defend its original decision to deny asylum.
     Immigration lawyers admitted that the situation is helping their clients to win cases they might otherwise have lost.
     The disclosure could help explain why the percentage of asylum seekers winning their appeals has risen from 17 per cent in 2005 to 25 per cent for the third quarter of 2008. ...
     Over the last two weeks, reporters from this newspaper attended 25 hearings around the country. At 24 of them, no Home Office Presenting Officer (Hopo) – who is tasked with putting the department's case before the immigration judge – was present.
     In the one remaining hearing, the officer turned up late and admitted that she was unprepared.
     Senior sources close to the hearings have said the Home Office is failing to properly defend about a third of cases which come to appeal.

Asylum – costs
Failed immigrant loses NHS test case
Auslan Cramb
Daily Telegraph, 31 March 2009

     Failed asylum seekers are not automatically entitled to free treatment on the NHS, one of Britain's most senior judges has ruled.
     Individual hospitals have the discretion to decide whether to treat penniless patients who are not British residents, and should use it in the most urgent cases, the judge said.
     In the case of a Palestinian man refused free treatment for a liver condition, Lord Justice Ward ruled that it was not right to say that a failed asylum seeker who had been in the country for more than a year had "lawfully resided" in Britain for that period, and thus qualified for NHS care.
     The ruling at the Appeal Court in London was made in a test case brought by a 35-year-old, identified in court only as YA, who was told he was not eligible for free treatment at West Middlesex University Hospital and was charged £9,000. He was refused leave to remain in Britain but had no travel documents, so could not return to the Middle East.

Asylum
Asylum magnet
Daily Telegraph, 25 March 2009

     Britain was the third most popular destination for asylum seekers, the UN said yesterday. Some 159,000 people claimed asylum in Britain between 2004 and 2008, with the US and France receiving more out of the top 44 industrialised nations.

Asylum
Synod votes for asylum amnesty
Martin Beckford
Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2009

     More than 300,000 asylum seekers should be allowed to stay in Britain indefinitely, the Church of England said.
     The Church's governing body, the General Synod, voted overwhelmingly in favour of an amnesty for asylum seekers whose cases were still being decided. It said all those who wanted to live in Britain should be allowed to work.
     The Synod added that a solution must be found to the "intolerable" situation of people who were refused the right to remain but could not return to their home countries, and that children and families must no longer be detained in immigration removal centres. The Rev Ruth Worsley, a priest in the diocese of Southwell and Nottingham who tabled a motion on the issue, said: "The financial cost to our country, as well as the human cost which leaves people in limbo for years, not knowing what their future might hold, seems unconscionable.
     "The Gospel tells us that we are not a tribal nation but a global family."

Asylum – deportation
Asylum seekers 'face one in 10 chance of removal'
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 23 January 2009

     Asylum seekers who were told that they could not stay in Britain could face just a one in 10 chance of being removed, the Government's auditors said yesterday.
     There was also no system in place to track those granted asylum, even though their cases were supposed to be reviewed after five years.
     Their report suggested that the Home Office was going to miss its promise of clearing a backlog of 450,000 asylum cases by 2011.
     Tens of thousands could not be dealt with because of "external factors," either in the person's home country or in Britain, the National Audit Office said.
     The report found that 70 per cent of escorted removals were cancelled and thousands of emergency documents obtained to help return failed asylum seekers remained unused. The backlog of new asylum cases coming to Britain that had not been dealt with doubled last year.
     The auditors found that of those who applied for asylum between January 2007 and February last year and were refused by new regional teams, between just seven and nine per cent were removed by August last year. In comparison, about 98 per cent of those under the detention fast-track system were removed.
     A Home Office spokesman said: "This in no way reflects the total number of failed asylum seekers removed in 2007.
     "In fact, we removed more than 13,700 people compared to an intake of 17,500 – that's a removal rate that's closer to eight out of 10."

Asylum – crime
80 foreign murderers welcomed to Britain: Albanian killers allowed to stay despite being on Interpol 'wanted' list
Sue Reid and Arthur Martin
Daily Mail, 23 January 2009

     Eighty foreign killers are exploiting the chaotic asylum system to set up home in Britain, it was revealed yesterday.
     The convicted murderers from Albania have been given British passports despite being officially listed as 'wanted' by Interpol.
     Most slipped across the Channel from Calais to Dover hidden in the back of lorries on ferries. They used bogus names and false papers to claim asylum, often pretending to be from the war-torn Balkan republic of Kosovo.
     The scandal came to light when Albania's chief of police complained that 100 criminals from his country have been granted British citizenship and now live here.
     The police chief said the criminals have been allowed to stay even though the Albanian government has informed the Home Office of the true identities of the men and their crimes, which also include rape and robbery.
     Many of the convicted criminals have been living in the UK for up to ten years and have started new families here.
     As the revelations exposed the shambles within the asylum system yet again, campaigners expressed their outrage.
     Sir Andrew Green, of MigrationWatch, said: 'It is a real concern that people accused of, or even convicted of, very serious crimes should apparently find it so easy to gain asylum in Britain.'
     Rose Dixon, of victim group Support After Murder and Manslaughter, added: 'I'm astounded. If this is correct, I'm appalled that these people are walking the streets of Britain. I think we should be told a lot more about this.'
     After the Home Office was informed about the true identity of the asylum seekers, extradition proceedings against them were lodged by the Albanian Government.
     But complex legal arguments and the need to find interpreters and psychologists has led to lengthy delays.
     Albanian criminals use myriad loopholes in the extradition laws to avoid being sent home.
     Their lawyers often claim they will suffer human rights abuse on their return, or that trials in their absence were unfair because they could not give their side.
     The situation is even more complicated if they have become British citizens. Under the Human Rights Act 1988, this gives them further protection against being removed because their family life would be disrupted. ...
     Ahmet Prenci, the Albanian chief of police, said he felt as if all his force's hard work in tracking down the culprits had been in vain.
     'We have made a list of our people who are hiding in the UK,' he said. 'There are 100 criminals, and more than 80 per cent are wanted for murder and have been convicted in absentia.
     'They have been given British citizenship despite our efforts to extradite them to serve prison sentences in our country.
     'We are working intensively to identify, locate, and then to arrest wanted Albanian people in Britain. Unfortunately, many have British passports obtained after they claimed asylum by pretending to be Kosovans.
     'We are unhappy that the courts repeatedly refuse extradition of these criminals. There is no reason for an Albanian citizen who has been involved in a crime not to be punished.'
[Site link]

Asylum – deportation
90% of failed asylum seekers remain in UK... and backlog of undecided cases doubles in a year
Matthew Hickley
Daily Mail, 23 January 2009

     As many as nine out of ten failed asylum seekers are being allowed to stay in Britain despite having no right to remain, a report from a Government watchdog reveals today.
     The backlog of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation is growing fast as the UK Border Agency fails to keep pace with the number of rejected applicants. The number of unprocessed cases is also growing.
     And Government rules stating that all successful asylum seekers must have their cases reviewed after five years - to see if their country is now safe enough to return to - have descended into farce, because the Border Agency has no way of tracking those living in Britain and no plans for a review.
     Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling called the report, from the National Audit Office, a 'shocking indictment of the shambles that is our immigration and asylum system'. Meanwhile, the Commons Public Accounts Committee, to which the NAO reports, claimed the Agency was 'struggling to cope.' ...
     Today's report acknowledges that the £800million-a-year system is now 'better organised than before', but highlights grave problems which in many cases are getting worse.
     A surge in the number of asylum claims saw the backlog of undecided cases more than double in a year, to almost 9,000.
     The NAO tracked more than 25,000 claims lodged from January 2007 to February 2008, of which almost 14,000 were refused.
     But of 10,719 cases processed in the seven regions around the UK, only 918 - less than 10 per cent - had actually been deported by the following August.
     The rate was higher for 3,000 false claimants who were fast-tracked in detention. Including these claims, the overall removal rate was just one in four.
     A severe shortage of detention spaces is making removals harder, the report warned, with much of the available capacity taken up by foreign criminals who have completed their sentences and are awaiting deportation.
     The NAO also highlighted glaring inefficiencies, including:
     • Seventy per cent of planned deportations - where security staff accompany deportees on flights home - are cancelled, often due to lack of proper coordination, leading to 'additional work and costs'.
     • The Agency often has to buy emergency travel documents from foreign governments to deport failed asylum seekers, but 13,000 of these have been wasted because individuals absconded, or because the papers expired.
     • Since 2005, Britain has granted asylum for five years only - after which cases should be reviewed in the hope that some immigrants will be able to return home.
     But astonishingly the Border Agency 'has no process' to track refugees living in Britain and 'no plans in place to review these cases'.
     There are 8,000 due for review next year.
     Last night, the Agency's chief executive Lin Homer confirmed there was 'no requirement' for asylum seekers to tell officials when they move house.
     Sir Andrew Green, of MigrationWatch, said: 'This is a shameful performance for the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds. It is no surprise that asylum seekers, many of them bogus, are queuing up in Calais.'
[Site link]

Asylum
180,000 to stay in asylum fiasco
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 10 December 2008

     At least 180,000 asylum seekers caught up in the claims backlog fiasco are likely to be allowed stay in Britain.
     More than 50,000 out of 450,000 who were found to have slipped under the net in 2006 have so far been permitted to stay, Lin Homer, the chief executive of the UK Border Agency, told MPs.
     If the 40 per cent approval rate continues, at least 180,000 will have been freed to stay once the backlog is cleared. Applicants whose cases have been ignored for up to a decade or more are now expected to be given the green light because sending them home would breach their human rights after they have effectively settled here.
     Some of the files date back to the mid-1990s.
     The list includes thousands of people from Turkey and Pakistan. Critics said the move was effectively an amnesty by stealth. ...
     The 450,000 files in the Case Resolution Programme were unearthed in 2006 after the foreign prisoners scandal.
     Among them are claimants who should have been deported years ago.
     Ministers have promised to work through all the cases by 2011, while also having to deal with all fresh asylum claims and those failed cases still awaiting deportation. ...
     Normally, just 10 per cent of asylum claims are granted in the first instance, although more are approved on appeal.
     Human rights laws will be to blame for most cases, either because it is unsafe to return the asylum seekers or because they have been here so long they now have families and are protected under the right to family life.

Asylum – border security
Children left at British ports
Daily Telegraph, 4 October 2008

     Children as young as three have been found abandoned at British ports and airports, it emerged yesterday.
     Home Office figures show 3,525 unaccompanied children under 18 applied for asylum in 2007, a two per cent increase on the previous year. Many of the youngsters were from Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq.
     Children were abandoned at Southampton docks, airport and service stations, Hampshire county council reported. The youngest was three years old.

Asylum – deportation
Rejected asylum seekers can stay
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 25 July 2008

     Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers whose cases were lost or overlooked by the Home Office and expected to be allowed to stay in Britain in what critics call an "effective amnesty".
     More than 100 foreign prisoners also remain on the run two years after the Government pledged to deport them, it was disclosed yesterday.
     The Home Office was engulfed in scandal two years ago when a backlog of 450,000 case files were found lying around in boxes, some dating from the mid-1990s and beyond.
     They included many would-be refugees whose cases had been rejected as bogus but who had not been deported.
     Figures released yesterday show that two years later officials have processed only 90,000 of the files, and almost half – 43 per cent – of the applicants have been told they can stay in Britain permanently. Many of the cases are still considered unfounded, but the asylum seekers and their families have been living in Britain for so long that the courts are likely to block any efforts to deport them on human rights grounds.
     All those allowed to stay will be able to claim benefits and seek citizenship, regardless of the merits of their original claims.
     The figures also show that only 308 of the 1,013 criminals who were supposed to have been ejected from the country have gone.

Asylum
Asylum refugees' treatment 'inhuman'
Patrick Sawer
Sunday Telegraph, 29 June 2008

     An inquiry will tomorrow brand Britain's asylum system inhumane and urge the Government to improve the treatment of refugees.
     The Independent Asylum Commission, whose members include senior clergy, lawyers and academics, will make 46 recommendations to the Home Office, including ways to speed up the handling of claims.
     The recommendations, which follow a two-year inquiry, aim to address the failings of the system from the moment claimants are first interviewed.
     The report says a "culture of disbelief" persists among officials which is stacking the odds against genuine refugees.
     The effect of post-traumatic stress as a result of rape and torture is not considered carefully enough by those interviewing claimants, say the commissioners.

Asylum – benefits and costs
Judge backs free NHS care for 11,000 asylum seekers
Daily Telegraph, 12 April 2008

     As many as 11,000 failed asylum seekers could qualify for free NHS treatment after a High Court judge declared that current regulations were "unlawful".
     The ruling by Mr Justice Mitting applies to asylum seekers who have had their claims turned down but who have become "ordinarily resident" in Britain because it would be unsafe for them to return to their native country.
     It follows a legally aided case brought by a Palestinian asylum seeker who was initially refused free treatment for chronic liver disease. ...
     The refusal was in line with NHS charges regulations introduced by the then health minister John Hutton in 2004.
     The Department of Health was immediately given permission to appeal.

Asylum – deportation
Number of asylum deportations falls
Daily Telegraph, 27 February 2008

     The number of failed asylum seekers being deported has slumped to a six-year low – just as the number arriving in Britain has leapt to its highest level since 2005.
     Home Office figures showed that the number of failed asylum seekers removed from Britain dropped by more than a quarter in the past year, down to 13,595.
     The news came as the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain leapt by a fifth last year to the highest level since 2005. This includes a 40 per cent rise in the second half of 2007.

Asylum – border controls
Now wrongdoers have the grass on their heads to fear
Richard Gray
Sunday Telegraph, 3 February 2008

     Criminals who claim they were not at the scene of a crime can now be betrayed by their hair.
     Forensic scientists have developed a technique that allows them to track a person's movements by analysing samples of head and body hair.
     The technology relies on the distinct chemical "fingerprint" of air and water in different countries, and even in different regions of the UK.
     Each location has a unique cocktail of atoms known as isotopes in the air and water which get into the body when we eat, drink and breathe.
     As hair grows, it incorporates these isotopes, providing a record of where a person has been. ...
     The Home Office is believed to be interested in using the technique to weed out illegal immigrants who claim asylum using false documents. By analysing hair and nail clippings, immigration officers could determine when asylum seekers are telling the truth about the countries they claim to come from.

Asylum – deportation
Smith admits asylum error
Daily Telegraph, 24 December 2007

     The Home Secretary has admitted that the number of failed asylum seekers whose deportation flights are postponed because of their disruptive behaviour is almost double the figure previously released.
     Jacqui Smith has apologised after stating that there had been 1,173 such cases over two years when the real figure is nearly twice as high.
     In a letter to David Davis, the shadow home secretary, Ms Smith wrote: "It has now come to light that some of this information was incorrect and the figure is in fact 2,079.
     "Please accept my sincere apologies for the error."
     A Home Office spokesman said the mistake was down to an administrative error.

Asylum – repatriation
Asylum returners take cash and stay
Ben Leapman
Sunday Telegraph, 23 December 2007

     Failed asylum seekers are drawing benefits to which they are not entitled by claiming that they are about to return home – only to continue to live in Britain for years.
     The scam, which may have cost taxpayers millions of pounds, has come to light with the cases of four migrants who signed up for the Home Office's voluntary repatriation programme and who then went on to live off state handouts worth tens of thousands of pounds.
     They took advantage of a scheme that offers asylum seekers £4,000 to go home and set up in business. Last week The Sunday Telegraph revealed that £36 million of taxpayers' money had been spent helping 23,000 asylum seekers to start enterprises including an ostrich farm in Iran and a vineyard in Albania.
     However, millions more has been spent on supporting those who have signed up for the scheme but are still in the UK, some with no intention of returning home.
     Asylum seekers whose claims have been rejected, and whose appeal rights have been used up, are given 21 days' grace before being stripped of benefit entitlements and told to leave the country.
     However, if they agree to go home via the Voluntary Assisted Return and Reintegration Programme (VARRP), they become eligible for "Section Four support", an emergency handout consisting of free food vouchers worth £35 a week, plus free accommodation, with council tax and utility bills paid, worth about £100 a week.
     Most receive the benefit for two or three weeks until flights home have been arranged by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the agency that runs the assisted return scheme on behalf of the Home Office. ...
     The IOM said it always passed on to the Home Office the names of applicants who failed to leave the UK.
     The Home Office could not say why it had failed to stop payments in the four cases. It was also unable to say how many more migrants might be in similar positions or how much it spends on Section Four support.

Asylum – deportation
Had a bad day? Take it out on an asylum-seeker
Alasdair Palmer
Sunday Telegraph, 23 December 2007

     ... the Home Office's Border and Immigration Agency (BIA). They arrived at four in the morning at the foster home of a 15-year-old Iraqi asylum claimant in order to bundle him onto a plane out of Britain. ...
     ... It is an example of the bungling inefficiency that too often characterises the BIA. Its officials had known of J's arrival in the UK since April, and had tried to visit him in May, but J had not been at his address when they called. They then seem to have forgotten about him for nearly seven months, so that by the time they went back at 4am on November 8, the six-month time limit on removals in such cases had expired. That fact alone, said the judge, made the removal of the boy unlawful.
     The BIA's outrageous behaviour was wholly, and foreseeably, counter-productive: J will now have to be brought back to the UK, and will probably end up having his claim for asylum here approved. ...
     ... More than 20,000 children under 18 have arrived in Britain to claim asylum over the past few years: the Home Office won't say how many of those claims have been refused, still less how many children have been deported. Other agencies such as social and health services often refuse to co- operate with the BIA's attempt to identify and remove failed child asylum seekers. It makes the job of enforcing the law doubly difficult, and they mostly fail.
     There is a backlog of at least 200,000 people whose claims for asylum have been investigated and found to be without merit, but who have not left Britain. Many of them will not only never be removed: they will get their families into Britain, under the "right to family" reunion enshrined in the Human Rights Act. In asylum law, two wrongs make a right: if you can get here and stay here, you get the right to bring your family here. ...
     We need a tough asylum policy: one that makes sure that the law is enforced fairly and effectively. But this should not be confused with a brutal, inhumane 0one enforced by officials who behave in outrageous fashion. At the moment, however, we are getting the worst of both worlds: a feeble, ineffective policy, coupled with occasional bouts of outrageous behaviour from the officials charged with enforcing it.

Asylum – deportation
Immigration 'amnesty' for 160,000
Rosa Prince
Daily Telegraph, 18 December 2007

     More than 160,000 illegal immigrants due for deportation may be given asylum and allowed to stay in Britain amid claims that the Government has embarked on a secret "stealth amnesty".
     Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, disclosed last night that more than a third of the backlog of illegal immigrants reconsidered for deportation had actually been granted leave to remain since 2006.
     Over the past 18 months, the Government has reassessed only the cases of 52,000 illegal immigrants out of a backlog of 450,000. Of that 52,000, 19,000 have been allowed to stay – sparking fears that asylum could finally be granted to 164,000 previously due to be deported if the present rate of "amnesty" continues.
     The Conservatives said that despite previous Government plans to deport those here illegally, only 16,000 had so far been sent home – three per cent of the total backlog.
     Miss Smith disclosed the damning figures in a letter to the Commons home affairs committee, sent on the eve of MPs' Christmas recess. ...
     Many records covered people who had already left the UK, had died or were EU citizens with a right to reside here. Miss Smith said 900 caseworkers had been appointed to deal with the backlog.

Asylum – deportation
We can't buy our way out of asylum failure
Sunday Telegraph, 16 December 2007
[Leading article]

     So since 1999 the Home Office has operated a scheme which today hands failed asylum seekers £1,000 to leave Britain, and then gives them a further £3,000 towards setting up a business in their own country. The Government may have been proud of the programme, but it evidently did not feel proud enough to inform the public of its workings: today, we report the details of some of the scheme's beneficiaries, and what they did with their money, for the first time. ...
     The principal problem with any such scheme is that it rewards, and therefore provides an incentive for, bogus asylum claims – precisely the behaviour that it was meant to diminish. ...
     The reward scheme itself has not worked and should be abandoned, not least because it would send a strong signal that law-breaking will not be tolerated. The money should be used to deport failed asylum seekers, not to reward them. Only a small fraction of those whose asylum claims have been refused since 1997 have actually left the country. Although the Government deports about 1,000 failed asylum-seekers every month, there is still a backlog of 240,000 people whose claims for asylum have been rejected. Because around 1,000 additional claimants are added to the "rejected" list every month, the Government's deportations have made no impact on the huge backlog.

Asylum – politics
'Cover-up' over £35m asylum centres that were never built
Robert Watts
Sunday Telegraph, 4 November 2007

     Botched plans to detain thousands of asylum seekers in the depths of the countryside have wasted £35 million of taxpayers' money.
     Officials at the Home Office have also been accused of a cover-up after scores of documents about the proposed centre disappeared.
     Labour ministers originally planned to build four holding centres in rural areas five years ago. But the plans were shelved three years later after opposition from the Refugee Council, the Red Cross and thousands of local residents.
     A report this week by the National Audit Office, the public spending watchdog, will for the first time lay bare the full cost to taxpayers of the ditched policy. It will announce on Thursday that ministers spent around £35 million on a proposed asylum centre in Oxfordshire alone - £10 million more than initially thought.

Asylum
Asylum crisis getting worse say officials
Ben Leapman
Sunday Telegraph, 14 October 2007

     The asylum system is in turmoil, and claimants could now be offered a backdoor amnesty to remain in Britain, a leaked Home Office memo has revealed.
     The document raises fears that a government target to speed up the processing of new claims could lead to existing cases being given "lower priority", potentially allowing thousands of claimants to stay in the country indefinitely.
     The memo, seen by this newspaper, says unrest is spreading in detention centres, a growing number of claimants are going missing before cases are decided and the number of failed asylum seekers being deported is declining.
     The concerns are highlighted in a "performance report" to ministers from the Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), which enforces the asylum system. ...
     Home Office figures show that only 23,610 people claimed asylum last year, the lowest annual total since 1993. However, the Government missed its deportation target with only 6,780 failed asylum seekers removed in the first half of this year, down from 10,345 in the same period last year.
     With fewer than 3,000 places in immigration detention centres, most asylum seekers are given free housing while their claims are processed, making it easy for them to abscond.

Asylum
Daily Telegraph, 9 October 2007

     Britain is the top European destination for asylum seekers, according to figures released by the EU yesterday. In 2006, Britain received 27,850 applications for asylum, more than France (26,300), Sweden (24,300) and Germany (21,000).
     Britain received 3,000 fewer applications than in 2005. The greatest number of asylum applicants came from Eritrea, with 2,725 applying to stay, followed by Iran (2,675) and Afghanistan (2,650).

Asylum – immigration
Asylum backlog won't be cleared until 2011
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 22 August 2007

     In the second quarter of this year, the number of asylum applicants removed because they were not considered legitimate refugees fell by more than a third to 3,280, compared to the same period last year when 5,260 were deported.
     This means that the Government's "priority" target to remove more failed asylum seekers than there are new applicants has been missed.
     ... Ministers said they will clear the backlog of 450,000 cases by 2011. But at current rates, it would take 30 years.
     Separate figures published yesterday showed that the number of eastern Europeans who have registered to work in Britain since May 2004 is close to 700,000. More than 50,000 arrived in the three months to June this year, mainly from Poland. The figures do not include the self-employed or the families of workers, so the true total could be much higher.
     In addition, 9,335 people arrived in the second quarter of the year from Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the European Union on January 1. Another 3,980 came under the agricultural workers scheme.

Asylum
£10m of Diana fund to help asylum seekers
Caroline Davies
Daily Telegraph, 20 August 2007

     The Diana Memorial Fund is marking the 10th anniversary of the Princess's death by earmarking up to £10 million of its remaining £25 million funds on promoting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.
     The money, to be spent over the next five years, will help fund organisations that support the plight of young asylum seekers in particular, and will lobby for the rights of those under 25.
     ... "We have been supporting the cause of refugees and asylum seekers right from the very start," said Paul Hensby, the fund's campaign manager. ...
     The fund, which received up to £20 million in donations in the immediate aftermath of the princess's death, has sponsored Refugee Week for the past three years and intends to do so next year. ...
     Fifty unaccompanied children seeking asylum arrive every week. ...
     Critics of the scheme include Lord Tebbit, the former Conservative cabinet minister, who said: "We spend vast sums already on asylum seekers and Government figures show that 90 per cent are not genuine cases. ..."

Asylum – amnesty
Amnesty plan for asylum seekers
Ben Leapman
Sunday Telegraph, 5 August 2007

     Hundreds of thousands of failed asylum seekers may be allowed to settle permanently in Britain under a "back-door amnesty" scheme.
     The Government wants to clear a backlog of 450,000 "legacy" cases of immigrants turned down for refugee status but never expelled.
     A 1,000-strong Home Office team has been set up to examine cases, giving priority to those who may now qualify for UK residency because such a long time has passed since their initial rejection.
     The first 6,000 families on the list were sent questionnaires last month asking about their current circumstances. Insiders close to the scheme said those who gave the "right" answers would be granted "leave to remain".
     Asylum seekers who cannot be traced are expected to be simply struck off the "legacy" list, giving the impression that officials have made progress in tackling the backlog. They would no longer be sought actively for removal, even though they would remain illegal migrants - liable for deportation if caught. ...
     The Borders and Immigration Agency (BIA), a branch of the Home Office, aims to consider all "legacy" cases by 2011. It will not say how many it expects to be allowed to remain. Those granted leave-to-remain status will be able to live and work freely in the UK, and claim benefits. After five years they can apply for a British passport. ...
     Liam Clifford, a former immigration officer and head of the consultancy globalvisas.com, said: "While the Home Office talks tough, it is preparing for one of the biggest mass grants of residency rights to asylum seekers in history. The word is out at street level that completing the questionnaire will result in the right to stay in the UK. The BIA simply does not have the resources to investigate each case properly, so it will grant all the applications it can in order to clear the backlog."
     Ministers insist the scheme does not amount to an amnesty because decisions are being taken on a case-by-case basis.

Asylum
450,000 Asylum Seekers to be Allowed to Remain in UK
Press Dispensary, 30 July 2007
[Press release]

     It has come to the attention of leading immigration consultancy www.globalvisas.com that the Home Office is preparing to grant over 450,000 asylum seekers 'Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK (ILR)'.
     All cases that were pending in the system before the Immigration and Nationality Directorate obtained agency status in April 2007 are to be considered for ILR to clear the backlog. The Home Office will begin with families, many of whom have had children since arriving in the UK, increasing the exact numbers to an unknown figure.
     Director Liam Clifford, says: "The Borders and Immigration Agency or BIA simply does not have the resources to tackle the problem and cannot investigate each case properly so it is going to grant all the applications it can in order to clear the backlog.
     "In another admission of its inability to cope, the Home Office has given current instructions to prosecute anyone claiming NAS (National Asylum Support) benefits and working illegally earning over £4,000. However, this cannot be achieved because of a lack of resources. In our experience, and from what we are being told, officers now only deal with cases where people are illegally earning in excess of £20,000 p.a. Even in these cases, the Home Office and Department of Work and Pensions can only afford to slap the person on the wrist as no other options are available to them.
     "While the UK Home Office talks tough and claims that biometrics and joint agency co-operation will reduce immigration of low skilled migrants and terrorists, they are preparing for one of the UK's biggest mass grants of Leave to Remain for asylum seekers in history. The Home Office has said that this will not be called an amnesty as it may create the wrong impression. However, the word is out at street level that completing the questionnaire which the Home Office is about to send out to 450,000 people and families will result in the right to stay in the UK.
     "With a record number of people emigrating overseas and UK PLC unable to attract the right skills it desperately requires, why does the government continue to present barriers for highly skilled people to come here, while being lenient on those immigrants who are of no benefit to our economy, and may actually burden the public purse and local council resources?
     "In recent years, many of our corporate clients have been finding it more difficult to deal with the immigration process for highly skilled workers and work permits, which is about to get worse with commercial partnerships, biometrics, compliance audits and off-shore visa processing. In spite of this asylum seekers can arrive with no checks or controls and receive benefits and Leave to Remain."
[Site link]

Asylum – deportation
Big fall in number of deportations
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 23 May 2007

     The number of failed asylum seekers removed from the country has fallen by a third in a year - despite a promise from Tony Blair to speed up deportations, official figures showed yesterday.
     In September 2004 he pledged to accelerate the removal of an estimated 250,000 asylum seekers who had exhausted all legal processes.
     There was a surge in deportations after John Reid took over as home secretary and demanded better enforcement of the law.
     But in the first quarter of this year, 3,370 asylum applicants were removed - 34 per cent fewer than in the same period last year.

Asylum – Australia, USA
US to swap asylum seekers with Australia
Nick Squires
Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2007

     Australia and the United States will swap asylum seekers under a contentious scheme to deter migrants from seeking asylum in either country.
     Under the exchange scheme, asylum seekers will lose the chance of choosing their destination. The boat people held by Australia on the remote Pacific island of Nauru will be sent to the US, while Cuban and Haitian refugees held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba will be sent to Australia. ...
     Under the agreement, the two countries would swap 400 asylum seekers - 200 from each country - this year and in 2008. The policy will be reviewed in 2009.

Asylum – immigration
200,000 'lost' asylum seekers may be allowed indefinite stay
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 2 April 2007

     More than 200,000 failed asylum seekers may stay in Britain indefinitely because they cannot be traced.
     Officials have conceded that nearly half of the 450,000 "legacy cases" in which the applicants are left in limbo may never be cleared.
     Ministers have flatly ruled out an amnesty and have pledged to remove everyone not entitled to be here within five years.
     Some "legacy" cases date back 15 years and experts believe the Government will not be able to fulfil its pledge to clear the backlog by July 2011. Officials attending a recent meeting to discuss the legacy policy were told that half of the 450,000 are "untraceable".
     They were also told that 18,000 foreign nationals who have committed crimes in Britain were earmarked for deportation, the first time an official figure has been given.

Asylum
Failed asylum seekers allowed to reapply
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2007

     Hundreds of failed asylum seekers who have exhausted all avenues of appeal have been allowed to reapply, new figures show.
     They include 80 repeat applications from Afghanistan and 30 from Turkey.
     A Commons written answer disclosed that in the past two years, 520 applications had been received from people who had previously been rejected both in the initial stage and at appeal.
     Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, conceded that the figures were not normally published and were based on "internal management information".
     Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, signatory countries are obliged to consider the asylum application of anyone to assess whether they have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted", even if the individual had previously been turned down. ...
     According to the National Audit office, in 2003 the average cost of processing an initial asylum application was just over £3,000. An appeal costs another £4,500.
     This includes support and accommodation costs of around £147 for each week an application is in process, or more if the applicant has dependants. The annual cost of running the asylum system is more than £1.5 billion.

Asylum – Irish Republic
Ireland bars Romanians, other EU nationals from claiming asylum
Associated Press, 18 January 2007

     Ireland will no longer process asylum applications from citizens of Romania or other European Union members, the government announced Thursday in a further tightening of the country's immigration laws.
     Justice Minister Michael McDowell said he had decided to end Ireland's practice of permitting citizens of other EU states to access Ireland's support system for asylum-seekers because his department received 220 applications from Romanians over the past week.
     He said the Romanian asylum-seekers were all deemed to have been trying to settle in Ireland in hopes of finding jobs, medical care and housing, not to escape persecution.
     "I am taking this firm action now in order to prevent the institution of asylum and our asylum determination process being resorted to for purposes other than those for which they are intended," he said.
     The decision means that asylum-seekers who are citizens of the other 26 EU nations will be refused permission to stay in state accommodation for asylum seekers. They also will not receive welfare payments specified for asylum-seekers.
     Until now, asylum-seekers from other EU states often were permitted to receive benefits until their claim could be considered – and in almost all cases rejected – by the government-appointed Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner. ...
     Ireland used to grant citizenship to any child born in Ireland – a policy similar to United States citizenship law but at odds with the European norm. Irish voters tightened the right to citizenship in a 2004 referendum, permitting Irish-born children the right to an Irish passport only if at least one of their parents has been resident here for a minimum of two years.

Asylum – cost
£40m annual bill for keeping failed asylum seekers here
Toby Helm
Daily Telegraph, 30 December 2006

     Taxpayers are footing a £40 million-a-year bill to house and feed almost 6,000 asylum seekers the courts have ruled should not be allowed to stay in this country, Government figures show.
     The admission by ministers that so many are receiving state help has led to claims that John Reid has failed to bring the asylum system under control - having promised to get tough on immigration when he became Home Secretary in the spring.
     In a written parliamentary answer to Damian Green, the Tory immigration spokesman, the Home Office admitted it cost £129 a week to keep each of 5,980 asylum seekers whose applications were rejected by the courts but who had subsequently asked for help.
     Of these, 2,375 are from Iraq, which Tony Blair and ministers insist is now largely safe.
     Last night the Home Office said those allowed to stay with state support were either "destitute" or had some other legitimate reason preventing them returning home. ...
     The 5,980 receiving state help form only a small part of an estimated 280,000 failed asylum seekers in this country. The vast majority are not in touch with the authorities.

Asylum – Switzerland
Swiss vote to bring in tougher asylum law
Kate Connolly
Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2006

     Swiss voters overwhelmingly backed a law yesterday that will introduce some of the toughest restrictions of any European country on asylum seekers.
     Under new regulations the home of the Red Cross and many international welfare agencies will severely curtail access for non-European refugees and migrants. ...
     Two thirds of Swiss voters supported the law change which, among other things, requires all those seeking refugee status to present a passport to authorities within two days, ...
     Workers from outside the European Union and the European Free Trade association will only be accepted if they have special skills.
     Asylum applications in Switzerland have fallen sharply over the past few years, dropping by more than 50 per cent over the past two years to 10,000.

Asylum
A fifth more children in care pushes annual cost to £1.65bn
Ben Leapman
Sunday Telegraph, 10 September 2006

     The number of children being taken into care has risen by 20 per cent in the past decade while the cost of dealing with youngsters removed from their natural parents has soared to £1.65 billion a year. ...
     The findings were disclosed in a report commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, and released on its website this month with no other publicity. ...
     Among those in care are 2,900 asylum-seeker children who have been abandoned.

Asylum – amnesty
Up to 80,000 bogus asylum seekers granted 'amnesty'
James Slack
Daily Mail, 8 September 2006
[In the first sentence, 'it has emerged night' was probably intended to be 'it has emerged' or 'it emerged last night']

     Up to 80,000 bogus asylum seekers have been granted an 'amnesty' to live in Britain, it has emerged night.
     They have been in the UK for so long the Government has decided not to even bother considering their claims.
     It is the last shocking indictment of Home Office incompetence.
     Officials had lost track of up to 30,000 of the claimants, or did not even know they were here in the first place.
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: "This amounts to an amnesty by default.
     "It is Home Office inefficiency that has led to these claims being granted."
     The shambles dates back to 2003, when then Home Secretary David Blunkett announced a desperate plan to clear the spiralling asylum backlog.
     He said families which had applied for refugee status before October 2000 and had been in the UK for four years could stay and be given full rights to work.
     Mr Blunkett asked his officials to trawl for who might be eligible and made a prediction that 15,000 families, or 50,000 people, would benefit.
     But the Daily Mail can reveal that the exercise, which is now on the verge of being completed, has already led to 24,030 families being given indefinite leave to remain.
     It is the equivalent of almost 80,000 people, with another 500 family cases still to be considered.
     Most of the clams are likely to have been bogus - Government statistics show fewer than one in ten applicants whose claims are actually processed is granted asylum.
     But, simply by staying in the country for long enough without having their claims considered, they will now be allowed to stay.
     Equally alarming is the Government's woeful underestimate of who may be eligible. It follows revelations of up to 450,000 asylum claims sitting in boxes, waiting to be dealt with.
     Almost 10,000 of the families granted an amnesty, or 30,000 people, were either not known to officials or had had their paperwork lost. ...
     The amnesty, known as the Family Indefinite Leave to Remain exercise, will be an acute embarrassment to the Home Office.

Asylum – fraud
Inquiry into 'cash for asylum' claims
Nicole Martin
Daily Telegraph, 28 July 2006

     The Home Office is to investigate allegations that an immigration officer helped bogus asylum seekers to enter Britain in return for cash.
     Joseph Dzumbira, 35, who works for the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, allegedly told an undercover newspaper reporter that he received up to £2,000 for providing fake documents to foreigners wanting to be granted refugee status. ...
     Mr Dzumbira, 31, allegedly told The Sun: "I know Nigerians are claiming to be Zimbabweans. No one checks." ...
     Lin Homer, director-general of the IND, said: "The Home Office will not tolerate fraud and corruption from its staff. We take these allegations very seriously and will investigate immediately."
     Keith Best, the director of the Immigration Advisory Service, a charity helping refugees, said: "The system is set up in a way which allows corruption to take place."

Asylum – deportation
Removal papers
Nicky Charles
Daily Telegraph, 26 July 2006
[Letter to the Editor]

     John Reid tells us that the asylum backlog will be cleared in five short years. Among his proposals are uniforms for border guards and additional staff recruitment (report, July 24).
     That's all well and good, but until he tackles the issue of removability, all his bluster will come to naught. To a greater or lesser extent, Immigration and Nationality Directorate staff shy away from dealing with removals to China, Iran, Pakistan, India, Kenya, Jamaica, Ghana, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Turkey and Nigeria.
     This is not because they feel insecure without a nice shiny uniform, but because the authorities of those countries refuse to accept their nationals back without a travel document - which their British representatives won't issue within an acceptable time scale. Until he resolves this issue, then his promised revolution will go unnoticed by the public at large.
     I write as a serving chief immigration officer.

Asylum
Who is Mr Reid trying to hoodwink over asylum?
Daily Telegraph, 21 July 2006
[Leading article]

     For John Reid, the Home Secretary, to predict that the backlog of asylum-seekers in this country will be cleared "within five years and hopefully sooner" suggests he has either lost his grip on reality or that he is being profoundly cynical. We tend towards the latter. Only a politician prepared to take the British public for fools could make such a preposterous promise. Ever since Labour came to office, its handling of asylum has been negligent in the extreme. At current rates, it would take more than 40 years to clear the backlog. Nothing that has come out of Mr Reid's welter of announcements this week instils any confidence that this rate will improve.
     Admittedly New Labour inherited a fast-growing problem in 1997. The previous Tory government had been forced to declare an amnesty for 30,000 asylum-seekers because of its inability to process their claims. But instead of tackling the crisis with rigour, the incoming Labour Government reacted with torpor. By the end of its first term in power, the battle was lost. Public disquiet led Labour to promise, in its 2001 manifesto, to deport 30,000 failed asylum-seekers a year - a promise it was forced to abandon the following year, by which time 100,000 applications were being received annually. An analysis by the National Audit Office found that in the decade to May 2004, 363,000 applications for asylum were turned down, but just 79,500 failed applicants were deported - that is, barely one in five. ...
     Labour seeks to mitigate its shameful record of failure to control the nation's borders by claiming that it is now removing more failed asylum-seekers than ever before. Not true. Last year, the figure was 15,055 removals - two years earlier, it was 17,895.

Asylum
Reid faces dangers in Home Office shake-up
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2006

     After less than three months on the bridge of the Home Office, John Reid yesterday tried to steer his rusting ship of state off the rocks on which it spectacularly foundered a few months ago. ...
     The Immigration and Nationality Directorate is to be hived off to become a quasi-independent agency where long queues, backlogs and piles of uncompleted case documents will no longer be tolerated.
     As an example of where the IND has lost its way, the Home Office let it be known that it had "seriously underestimated" the number of failed asylum applicants still in the country.
     It now concedes that there are 450,000 outstanding files whereas in the past it had acknowledged half that. Mr Reid said this backlog would be dealt with in five years, although that did not mean that those who were turned down would be removed.
     Indeed, no amount of technical restructuring will enable the Home Office to deport such a large number of people.
     Yet after floating the idea of an amnesty for all illegal overstayers a few weeks ago, that option was firmly shut off yesterday.

Asylum – fraud
Huge rise in student visas raises fear of asylum fraud
Brendan Carlin
Daily Telegraph, 14 June 2006

     Labour's immigration policy was under fresh attack last night after the Government admitted that it had no firm data on how many foreign students left the UK after the completion of their courses.
     The admission came after Douglas Carswell, the Conservative MP for Harwich, discovered a huge increase in the number of student visas issued to people from just five countries.
     Separately, the Foreign Office disclosed yesterday that as many as 180,000 people living in Pakistan and Bangladesh could be holding British passports and be able to live here - 135,000 more than official estimates.

Asylum – repatriation
Asylum cheats get £3,000 to go home
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 6 June 2006

     Thousands of failed asylum seekers are being paid millions of pounds to return to their home countries because it is cheaper than trying to deport them.
     An offer under which rejected applicants, or those who agree to withdraw their asylum request, are paid £2,000 in cash and £1,000 "benefits in kind" was taken up by almost 2,000 people in the first four months of the year.
     Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said yesterday that the scheme had been so successful that it would be extended for another six months. The £2,000 cash payment was introduced in January as an addition to a £1,000 resettlement grant in an effort to encourage more would-be refugees to abandon their attempts to stay in the country. As a result, the uptake more than doubled.
     The £3,000 bill compares with the £11,000 average cost of a forced deportation.
     Only those who applied for asylum before Jan 1 this year are eligible for the enhanced package and they must leave the country between July 1 and the end of the year.

Asylum
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 18 May 2006

     The reality is that things are worse than they were under the Tories, not because they were any better at managing matters but because the numbers involved are so much higher than 10 years ago.
     The surge in what became known as "bogus" asylum seeking and illegal immigration began in the early 1990s after the fall of the Berlin Wall made it easier to travel to Western Europe through the former Eastern Bloc countries.
     What had been a manageable trickle of arrivals became a cascade that the system struggled to deal with. In 1988, there were 4,200 applications; in 1995, there were 44,000. Rapidly, the backlog of asylum applications awaiting to be processed shot up to more than 60,000.
     The Tories got into such a pickle that they even introduced an amnesty allowing 30,000 people who had been in the country a long time to stay even if they were not bona fide political refugees because it had taken so long to process their claims.
     By 2002, the annual number of applications had risen to more than 100,000. Tough measures have reduced this figure to below where it was in 1997. ... ...
     The Tories also abolished embarkation controls - the paper check on people leaving the country to go to other European Union states from sea ports and small airports.
     When Labour took office, the remaining controls to the rest of the world, about 60 per cent of the total, were also scrapped. Since them it has no longer been an absolute requirement to show a passport or other travel document to immigration authorities on leaving. ...
     The Government says it is removing more people than ever before. That is just not true. In 2005, the figure was 15,055 whereas in 2003 it was 17,895. The main reason for this was the expansion of the EU. However, the current figure is a lower proportion of the number who are here who should not be than in 1997.

Asylum
Revealed: How asylum seekers use your taxes to smuggle in relatives
Nick Fagge
Daily Express, 17 May 2006

     Taxpayers are unwittingly funding an illegal people-trafficking scam, allowing waves of immigrants into Britain, a Daily Express investigation can reveal.
     Benefits paid to immigrants in the UK are being sent to France, where friends and relatives use the cash to pay to be smuggled on board ships and lorries bound for Britain. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, of Migration Watch, said: "Asylum seekers in Calais are already in a safe country and should stay there.
     "The only reason they press to come to Britain is because we are a soft touch. It's time that changed." ...
     The problem has also been highlighted by a five-year inquiry by the French Security Services (DST) into financial transfer fraud.
     DST agents have found that migrants are increasingly appealing to their British "sponsors" for help after they become stranded on the streets of Calais.
     British-based immigrants then send money to them to allow the next new wave of migrants to complete their journey to the UK. ...
     Immigrants in the UK are entitled to £40 a week from the publicly funded National Asylum Support Service while their applications to stay are being processed.
     Migrants are also provided with a flat, a room in a shared house or bedsit - at an average cost of £95 a week. If they are granted refugee status the payout increases to £60 a week as income support. This is apart from other Government hand-outs, such as child benefits, housing benefit, council tax rebate and free school meals as they become entitled to all the trappings of the welfare state. ...
     Charity workers in Calais told of a logjam of migrants currently trying to smuggle themselves into Britain.

Asylum
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 16 May 2006

     Since Labour took office in 1997 Britain has received applications for asylum from more than 500,000 people. The numbers have fallen in the last three years from a record of more than 100,000 in 2002. ...
     The number of illegal immigrants cannot be quantified but the Government recently estimated that as many as 280,000 failed asylum seekers may be in the country who should not be. ...
     The removal of unsuccessful applicants is in decline, from 17,800, including dependants, in 2003-4, to 14,250 last year.

Asylum
How one-tenth of all asylum seekers find a home in Britain
Steve Doughty
Daily Mail, 19 April 2006

     Britain took in almost one in ten of the world's asylum seekers last year, a United Nations report said yesterday.
     Over the past five years it has admitted nearly a third of a million - the highest total in Europe. ...
     'Despite a sharp fall, the UK remained the third largest asylum-seeker receiving country in 2005, accounting for 9 per cent of all requests lodged in the industrialised world,' the analysis found.
     Researchers from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said over the past five years only America has taken more asylum seekers. ...
     Although Britain tops the European toll over the last five years, Britain slipped into second place behind France last year. ...
     But, the report by UN High Commissioner Antonio Guterres says refugee numbers have been dropping worldwide and that numbers applying for asylum in EU countries have fallen by almost 50 per cent over the past five years. ...
     The UN figures show that Britain has accepted more than 325,000 asylum seekers since 2001.
     Mr Guterres acknowledged the claims for help of genuine refugees around the world had been harmed by abuse of liberal asylum rules by those trying to migrate for economic reasons.

Asylum
Bungled asylum policy could take 18 years to sort out
Daily Telegraph, 14 March 2006

     More than 400 freed criminals are among thousands of failed asylum seekers whose whereabouts are unknown to the Government.
     A report from a parliamentary watchdog published today says the Home Office has so bungled the removal of would-be political refugees who have had their applications turned down that it could take 18 years to clear the backlog.
     The department keeps no figures on how many failed applicants are still in the country. Its best estimate is between 155,000 and 283,500. They include 403 foreign nationals released from prison in the past five years without deportation proceedings being completed. ...
     "As time elapsed, the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) found it harder to locate and remove failed asylum seekers," says the report.
     "Many applicants evaded removal action or moved on without informing the directorate of their new address and hence it knew the addresses of only some 25 per cent of failed asylum applicants." ...
     The committee suggests taking a leaf out of Holland's book by encouraging voluntary resettlement and adopting a tougher line on deportations. But the policy has caused huge controversy in the Netherlands which the Government would be reluctant to provoke here.

Asylum
Drive to clear asylum backlog 'in chaos'
Daily Telegraph, 1 March 2006

     Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, admitted last night that he had abandoned a drive to recruit 100 much-needed asylum judges after a series of errors by Government officials. The judges were being taken on to deal with a backlog of appeals by asylum-seekers. ...
     He told the Commons constitutional affairs select committee that he ordered officials to abandon the programme begun at the end of last year after inconsistencies emerged in the way applicants had been treated. ...
     Figures published yesterday confirmed a continuing fall in applications for political asylum, which are now at their lowest level for 10 years. There were 25,720 applications in 2005, not including dependants, a fall of 24 per cent on the previous year.

Asylum
Judges scathing of efforts to streamline immigration
Daily Telegraph, 25 January 2006

     The Government's efforts to get to grips with the immigration system were criticised by two leading judges yesterday.
     His Honour Henry Hodge, the chairman of the immigration and asylum tribunal, told MPs that it was often pointless to order the return of people whose appeals were rejected because nothing then happened. ...
     Addressing the Commons home affairs select committee, Judge Hodge acknowledged the difficulties that officials faced in trying to arrange repatriation, especially as many of the migrants' home countries refused to take them back. ...

Asylum
Asylum seekers offered £2,000 to return home
Daily Telegraph, 13 January 2006

     Thousands of asylum seekers are to be offered millions of pounds in cash to return to their home countries under a scheme announced yesterday by the Home Office.
     The Government expects to spend about £6 million over six months encouraging around 3,000 refugees, who have been refused permission to stay or are awaiting decisions, to return home.
     As an incentive, they will be offered up to £2,000 cash and a further £1,000 worth of help "in kind" for reintegration, to fund education or training. A pilot scheme will make the cash available to those who agree to leave in the six months between this month and June.
     The Home Office is advertising the scheme to 54,000 people receiving benefits and accommodation from the National Asylum Support Service and will publicise it in asylum detention and reporting centres.
     Tony McNulty, the immigration minister, said in a written statement to the Commons ...
     "It is anticipated that such an offer could increase the number of predicted returns from about 1,950 to over 3,000 for the six-month period."
     Mr McNulty added that the £3,000 cost per person was "good value for money" compared with the £11,000 average cost of a forced deportation.

Asylum
Fast-track deportees 'free to abscond'
Sunday Telegraph, 8 January 2006

     Thousands of asylum seekers on the brink of deportation are to be sent to Liverpool under a secret Home Office scheme.
     They include illegal workers caught in swoops, people who claimed asylum after overstaying visitor visas, and applicants from "safe" countries with good human rights records.
     Their cases will be fast-tracked for a decision within two weeks, after which many will be sent straight back to their homelands.
     Yet despite the incentive to abscond, they will not be kept in detention centres but will live rent-free in flats or hotels, coming and going as they please.
     The only curb on their movement will be a request to report regularly to a local immigration office. ...
     The Home Office claimed that the initiative appeared to be working but officials could not say how many people had been deported, granted asylum, or had simply disappeared.

Asylum
Asylum case backlog costs taxpayer £500m
Daily Telegraph, 8 February 2005

     The taxpayer could have saved £500 million if the Home Office had put proper procedures in place to speed up asylum applications, a Commons committee says today.
     A surge in applications in 1999 and 2000 overwhelmed the staff and infrastructure at the immigration and nationality department, allowing huge backlogs to build up. ...
     In recent years the number of asylum applications has fluctuated from a peak of 84,130 applications in 2002 - not including dependants - to just under 50,000 in 2003.
     In 2002/3 the cost of running the system was £1.86 billion, half of which was spent on supporting applicants.

Asylum
Sandy Bruce-Lockhart
Daily Telegraph, 25 January 2005

     The rising number of asylum seekers in Kent ... In 1996 ... we had just 50 asylum seekers a year arriving. By 2000, this had escalated to 15,000 a year coming into Kent alone.
     Our council's budget on asylum - covering everything from housing to education - was less than £250,000 in 1996, and rose last year to £53 million. ...
     Over the past five years, we have also seen an unprecedented increase in children arriving into Kent without their parents, entirely on their own, either as asylum seekers or as potentially illegal immigrants. The first thing that these bemused children do, when arriving in Kent County Council's children's reception centres, is to phone home so that the second half of the fee owed to traffickers for their passage can be released ... A few years ago, we were receiving just three or four a year of these unaccompanied children, typically aged between 12 and 17, but last year the figure rose to about 100 a month.

Asylum
Brussels: We'll halt Howard's curb on migrants
Daily Telegraph, 25 January 2005

     The European Commission threatened last night to block Michael Howard's programme of tough immigration controls if the Tories win the election.
     These would include setting an annual limit on the number of asylum seekers. ...
     Europe's intervention on what has become a major issue in the election campaign took Westminster aback. MPs and officials were unaware of how much national sovereignty on immigration and asylum had been transferred to Brussels. ...
     A rolling wave of protocols and directives - one in force, one coming next month, a third next year and a fourth in 2007 - have overridden national laws on where governments keep asylum seekers, how they treat them, and how many appeals they are allowed.
     If a future British government were to enact laws that contravened EU regulations, the commission would begin "infringement proceedings". These would be followed, if resistance continued, by legal action in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

Asylum
Sunday Telegraph, 15 August 2004

     The Department for Constitutional Affairs is spending £10,000 offering advice on how to claim asylum. The leaflets are in Welsh. - Daily Express

Asylum – fraud
Alleged asylum fraud linked to Mugabe regime
Daily Telegraph, 21 June 2004

     Police and immigration officers are investigating an organisation, set up with National Lottery money to help immigrants, after claims that it forged documents and provided false life histories for 1,000 Zimbabwean asylum seekers. ...
     Among those who have abandoned Zimbabwe is Stalin Mau Mau, once a Zanu-PF parliamentary candidate, and the leader of a gang accused of forcing white farmers off their land.
     He says he entered Britain legally, but his status is now being investigated by the Home Office, as are his businesses, which include a supermarket in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.
     ... Like most Zanu-PF candidates, he roused his supporters at campaign rallies with one consistent chant: "Down with the whites!"
     ... About 1.1 million Zimbabweans live in Britain, according to an official estimate from the Harare regime.

Asylum – legal aid
Solicitors hand out gifts to grab lucrative asylum jobs
Sunday Telegraph, 6 July 2003

     Solicitors and immigration advisers are offering newly arrived asylum seekers free gifts, including video recorders and mobile telephones, as an inducement to sign up with them.
     The gifts - which are against the law - are being handed out because of the intense competition between lawyers to secure the extremely lucrative work. Last year, more than £175 million of taxpayers' money was spent on legal aid for asylum seekers, with most of it going to solicitors.
     The practice has been uncovered by John Scampion, the official Immigration Service Commissioner, ... ...
     Each asylum seeker is entitled to full free legal aid throughout the asylum process, which can drag on for years through countless hearings and appeals.

Asylum
Lawyers accused of 'milking asylum law'
Daily Telegraph, 22 February 2003

     Human rights lawyers are "cynically milking" the legal aid system to fight hopeless cases on behalf of asylum seekers, a judge said yesterday.
     They have been running up thousands of pounds in court costs, paid by the taxpayer, said Mr Justice Maurice Kay, despite having no chance of success.

Asylum
We're a job centre, not a safe haven
Alasdair Palmer
Sunday Telegraph, 1 December 2002

     Only about one in eight of those whose claims for asylum are rejected by the courts are actually deported. The message has gone out that if you can get to Britain, you can stay here. The Lords Committee that reported on the issue last week concluded that there was "no prospect" of reducing, or even controlling, illegal immigration without a radical re-think of asylum policy. ...
     Even though illegal immigrants are not officially allowed to work, they do so.

Asylum
Asylum seekers reach record 100,000 a year
Daily Telegraph, 30 November 2002

     Record numbers of asylum seekers are arriving in Britain despite intensified ministerial efforts to stop them. ...
     When dependants are added, there were nearly 30,000 applications between July and September. The total for the year, including children, seems certain to pass 100,000 for the first time - easily the highest in the EU. ...
     Beverley Hughes, the immigration minister, said the system known as exceptional leave to remain, which allows people to stay even when they are not judged to be genuine refugees, was being scrapped. It will be replaced by "humanitarian protection" to be granted only in cases of genuine hardship.

Asylum – finance
Asylum seekers' group will get lottery cash
Sunday Telegraph, 20 October 2002

     A controversial grant of £340,000 from the National Lottery for a group campaigning against the deportation of asylum seekers will be given the go- ahead this week despite fierce public protests.
     The Community Fund has been told that there are no legal grounds for rescinding the grant to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns.

Asylum
42,000 asylum seekers win right to stay
The Times, 1 August 2002

     Record numbers of asylum-seekers are being allowed to stay in the UK ...
     The number of refugees remaining legally in the country increased to a record 42,000 last year. The new figures reveal that thousands are successfully appealing against the initial rejection of their claims for asylum. ...
     Mr Blunkett ... His department is facing an overspend on the asylum system of almost £600 million, bringing the total annual bill for dealing with asylum to more than £1 billion. ...
     Mr Blunkett has already abandoned a pledge to remove 30,000 failed asylum- seekers and their dependents from the country after being told by officials that the figure was unrealistic.
     He dropped the target, set by his predecessor Jack Straw before the last general election, after the Home Office admitted it had been able to remove only 1,000 failed applicants a month. ...
     The figures show that 92,000 asylum-seekers and their dependents arrived in the UK compared with 88,300 in Germany, the second most popular destination. The UK figure was a drop of 7,000 on the previous year. ...
     The overall proportion of applications resulting in an asylum-seeker being allowed to stay in the country legally reached 42 per cent compared with 33 per cent a year earlier.

BENEFITS AND COSTS

Benefits and costs
Each illegal immigrant to cost us £1 million
Alison Little
Daily Express, 4 May 2009

     An amnesty allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the UK would cost a staggering £1 million for each newcomer.
     For the first time, the "huge, unnecessary burden" of letting up to 950,000 foreign nationals remain is revealed today by campaign group Migrationwatch.
     They say the move would be a "shocking waste of public money" when the nation is in the depths of recession.
     The pressure group also say a similar cost, based on people having children and earning low wages, could apply to many people who have already been granted asylum.
     And they warn that such an amnesty would only tempt more illegal immigrants into Britain – as has happened in Italy and Spain where migrants have been allowed to stay.
     A coalition of churches, unions and others are holding church services and a mass rally today in support of an "earned amnesty" for an estimated 450,000 long-term illegal immigrants if they meet certain conditions.
     The Institute for Public Policy Research, Labour's favourite think-tank, claimed the move could bring in more than £1 billion of tax a year.
     And Conservative London Mayor Boris Johnson has argued for an amnesty for long-term illegal immigrants of good character who can support themselves so that they contribute to tax revenues. A study for Mr Johnson by the London School of Economics has estimated that there were between 524,000 and 947,000 "irregular residents" and their children in Britain at the end of 2007, with a "central estimate" of 725,000.
     But Migrationwatch today publishes what it says is the first estimate of the "lifetime cost" to taxpayers of letting people stay in the UK.
     It is based on a 25-year-old, married with two children, who earned the minimum wage and lived in private rented housing, retired at 65 and lived until 80.
     Setting the tax and National Insurance paid against their demands on the public purse, including housing and council tax benefit and pension credit, brings their lifetime cost to taxpayers to some £900,000, with a bill of £1.1 million in London.
     Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said last night: "The numbers are truly enormous, adding an unacceptable, and entirely unnecessary, burden to the nation's balance sheet at a time when Boris Johnson himself is writing about 'the horrific state of the nation's finances'."
     Sir Andrew acknowledged that some immigrants would earn over the minimum wage and thus take lower welfare payments, but some may have more than two children and so get higher benefit.
     "Or they may be unemployed. Immigrants are, on average, more likely to be economically inactive than the UK as a whole," he added.
     The report says the cost of granting settlement to an asylum seeker who did not achieve higher earnings, although many would do so, would be similar.
     The campaign group says this makes Home Office failure to appear at up to a third of asylum appeals "reprehensible". Sir Andrew added: "It is also a shocking waste of public money at a time when we can least afford it."
     In Italy an amnesty in 1988 let 119,000 foreigners settle, but when the exercise was repeated in 2002 the figure soared to 700,000. In Spain the figure rose from 44,000 in 1985 to 700,000 in 2005.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – USA
Schwarzenegger: Immigrants not cause of budget woe
Michael R. Blood
Associated Press, 15 April 2009

     Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Wednesday that health care and other services for illegal immigrants cost California taxpayers as much as $6 billion a year, but that's not the reason for the state's financial mess. ...
     At an appearance at the Los Angeles Times, the Republican governor estimated that education and other services for illegal immigrants could carry a $4 billion to $6 billion price tag each year.
     But to place blame there for the ongoing budget mess – or any other single factor – "would be the wrong thing," he said.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
Arrival tax of £50 for all non-EU migrants
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 19 March 2009

     A new "tax" for all non-European Union migrants arriving to work or study in Britain will be announced today by Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary.
     The fee, thought to be about £50 per arrival, is to cover the extra burden on public services, and is expected to raise £35 million a year.
     The "migrant tax" will be levied on the hundreds of thousands of migrants who apply for work or study visas each year, from Australian bar staff to Rhodes scholars and Premier League footballers.
     The funds are earmarked for councils struggling to cope with the impact of mass immigration on services such as GPs' surgeries and schools.
     But critics have said that the money generated will be a "drop in the ocean", based on figures that show taxpayers provide £500 million a year for immigration-related costs.
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the pressure group MigrationWatch UK, said: "A rough estimate shows that, for every £1 the Government spends on schemes specifically to help migrants, its new tax will only raise about 7p.
     "And that spending does not allow for the fact that one new home will have to be built every six minutes for new immigrants, nor the additional costs to the NHS and education services, nor the countless other costs to local services that large-scale immigration brings."

Benefits and costs – politics
Non-EU immigrants to pay £50 tax
Rosa Prince
Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2009

     Foreign workers and students from outside the European Union will have to pay £50 when they arrive in Britain to help ease their impact on public services.
     The new "migrant tax", to be announced this week, will be levied on the thousands of immigrants from non-EU states applying for work or study visas, from Australian bar staff to Rhodes scholars and Premiership footballers.
     It is expected to raise £70 million over the next few years, with the funds earmarked for councils struggling to cope with the impact of mass immigration on services such as doctors' surgeries and schools. Ministers hope that acknowledging the strain caused by immigration in some areas will stop voters being tempted by the British National Party at the European elections in May.

Benefits and costs – education
EU students fail to repay study loans
Graeme Paton
Daily Telegraph, 27 February 2009

     Almost three quarters of EU students graduating from British universities fail to pay back their loans, leaving taxpayers with a multi-million-pound bill.
     Figures showed that 1,580 of the 2,240 students from outside Britain who should have started repaying had failed to do so.
     The Conservatives said the system used to track them down was "shockingly ineffective". The Student Loans Company relies on students to give correct information about their earnings and make their own arrangements to pay.

Benefits and costs – healthcare
700 organs given to foreigners despite long waiting list
Patrick Sawer
Sunday Telegraph, 25 January 2009

     The organs of nearly 700 British donors have been given to foreign patients in a controversial practice going back more than 10 years.
     It has led to patients from as far afield as China flying in for operations at NHS hospitals.
     The procedures have taken place despite a severe shortage of organs for transplant in Britain. Nearly 8,000 people are currently on NHS waiting lists for a transplant.
     Patient groups and politicians condemned the practice of making organs available to foreigners while so many British patients remained on waiting lists. ...
     The figures, obtained ... through a parliamentary question, show that about 70 British organs were transplanted into foreign nationals every year between 1998 and 2008. At the same time, only 140 foreign organs were brought into Britain to be transplanted into British patients.
     Among the foreigners given British organs in the past two years were 40 from Greece and Cyprus, as well as a number from Libya, the United Arab Emirates, China and Israel.
     Most of the operations took place at Leeds Teaching Hospital, King's College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital, both in London.
     The Healthcare Commission investigated the matter last year after being alerted to the number of operations being carried out at King's College Hospital but found that no rules were being broken.
     However, the British Transplantation Society criticised the practice.

Benefits and costs
Outrage over organs 'sold to foreigners'
Sarah-Kate Templeton
The Sunday Times, 4 January 2009

     The organs of 50 British National Health Service donors have been given to foreign patients who have paid about £75,000 each for private transplant operations in the past two years, freedom of information documents show.
     The liver transplants took place at NHS hospitals, despite severe shortages that mean many British patients die while waiting for an organ that could save their lives.
     The documents disclose that 40 patients from Greece and Cyprus received liver transplants in the UK paid for by their governments. Donated livers were also given to people from non-European Union countries including Libya, the United Arab Emirates, China and Israel.
     The surgeons who carry out the transplants receive a share of the operation fee – believed to be about £20,000 – as all the work is done privately in NHS hospitals.
     It comes as a record 8,000 Britons are on NHS lists waiting for transplant organs. About 260 British patients are waiting for a liver.
     Last week leading transplant surgeons and patient groups called for an end to the practice. Professor Peter Friend, president of the British Transplantation Society, said it was unethical to give organs to people from abroad while British patients were dying.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – health service
Costly NHS interpreters
Dr Charles Gauci
Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2008
[Letter to the Editor]

     As a consultant in the NHS, my staff and I are faced, virtually on a daily basis, with patients who cannot speak English and for whom an interpreter has to be hired, at considerable expense to the NHS.
     Interpreters are provided for every conceivable language (except, apparently, for my own native tongue, Maltese).
     No other country in the world provides such a service. Surely, if someone has been living here for five years and cannot speak English, they should be expected to pay for an interpreter themselves?

Benefits and costs
Cost in translation
Daily Telegraph, 19 December 2008

     The cost of providing translators for benefits claimants has risen by more than 40 per cent in four years, the Conservatives have disclosed. In 2004, the bill for translation at the Department for Work and Pensions stood at £2.5 million. By this year, it had risen to nearly £4 million.

Benefits and costs – health services
Thousands of Polish women come to Britain for abortions
Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2008

     Ten thousand Polish women had abortions in Britain last year, it was reported. The procedures, illegal in Poland, were thought to have cost the NHS between £5 million and £10 million.
     People coming to Britain as temporary workers are given a National Insurance number and can then register with a doctor and have NHS treatment. Britain is thought to be popular because abortions can be carried out up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
     The figures were disclosed by the Polish Federation for Women and Family Planning.

Benefits and costs
Polish pay-outs
Sunday Telegraph, 14 December 2008

     British taxpayers are paying £35 million a year in child benefit to support 42,759 children living in Eastern Europe, the majority in Poland, Government figures show.

Benefits and costs
Benefits of migrant labour 'overstated'
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 15 November 2008

     The benefits of mass immigration have been "wildly overstated" and there should be a cap on the numbers coming into the country, a group of peers has said.
     The warning was given during a debate over a scathing report on the Government's open door policy by the Lords economic affairs committee. The committee, which includes two former chancellors – Lord Lawson and Lord Lamont – and several former cabinet ministers, said that the Government must set an "explicit target range" for immigration and make rules to keep within that limit.
     Lord Wakeham, who chaired the committee, rejected as "fundamentally flawed" the claim that immigration is necessary to prevent labour shortages.

Benefits and costs – housing
Moving up. Family on benefits lives in £800,000 home at taxpayers' expense
Stephen Adams
Daily Telegraph, 11 November 2008

     A mother of five children who lives on benefits is being housed in a home worth up to £800,000 at taxpayers' expense.
     Nigerian-born Omowunmi Odia moved into the mock-Tudor executive home in Edgware, north London, after she was forced out of her previous property by court order. The property reportedly costs £25,000 a year to rent.
     Mrs Odia said that Barnet council had tried to house her in Enfield but she had stuck out for the home in Edgware, because it was closer to her children's school.
     Mrs Odia said that she and her children much preferred their new home, which has two sitting rooms and a double garage, as their old two-bedroom flat was too small.

Benefits and costs – unemployment benefits
Returning Poles claim British dole
Daily Telegraph, 5 November 2008

     Returning Polish workers are continuing to claim hundreds of pounds in benefits from British taxpayers.
     Job centre staff in Poland say increasing numbers of peopleare coming back to their home country after losing work in Britain and Ireland.
     They are advising them that rather than signing on for Polish benefit, which pays just £120 a month, they should use a European Union loophole to continue claiming Jobseeker's Allowance from Britain at a rate of about £260 a month for up to three months.

Benefits and costs – police, NHS
Translators for foreign criminals cost £22m
Andrew Porter
Daily Telegraph, 30 October 2008

     Police forces are having to spend more than £22 million a year on hiring interpreters for foreign criminals, new figures show.
     The overall cost has risen by two thirds in the past five years, but for some individual forces the amount paid to translators has increased by 400 per cent. ...
     In total the costs have risen from £13,580,599 in 2004 to £22,178,040 this year – a rise of 63 per cent. ...
     Of the 51 forces in Britain, 43 responded to the Freedom of Information request ...
     Meanwhile, it emerged that the NHS is spending millions on interpreters for patients who cannot speak English.
     At least 200 trusts spent £25 million on interpreters last year, figures released under Freedom of Information laws show. If this is representative of the 557 trusts in England and Wales, the total translation bill would be well in excess of £50 million.

Benefits and costs
Staff sacked over £170,000 benefits
Daily Telegraph, 10 October 2008

     Three council officials have been sacked after an Afghan woman was given £170,000 a year in benefits to live in a £1.2 million home.
     Ealing council in west London was paying Toorpakai Saiedi, a mother of seven, a monthly housing allowance of £12,458, nearly five times the rent for a similar property nearby. She also received £400 a week in benefits.
     The sacked housing officers claim they have been made scapegoats by the council.

Benefits and costs
The £1.2m council house tenants
Urmee Khan
Daily Telegraph, 9 October 2008
[See also "Staff sacked over £170,000 benefits" (10 October)]

     A mother is receiving £170,000 a year in benefits so that she and her family can live in a seven-bedroom house worth £1.2 million.
     Toorpakai Saindi, who has four sons and three daughters aged eight to 22, has been granted an estimated £400 a week in benefits. Her landlord is paid £12,458 a month because there is no other property suitable for her family.
     Mr Saindi, who came to Britain from Afghanistan seven years ago, approached Ealing council in west London in July after being made homeless. The authority has a legal obligation to find her a seven-bedroom house. ...
     The council says the benefit and rent payouts are set by central government. ...
     The Local Housing Allowance (LHA), introduced in England on April 7, enables landlords to find out the maximum rent available for a property before a price is agreed.
     Foxtons, the estate agents, said similar houses are let for about £6,000 a month.
     The landlord, Ajit Panesar, who is acting within his rights, fixed a value for his Acton property so that the Rent Service – an executive agency of the Department for Work and Pensions – could advise the council what it should pay. It came up with £12,458 a month.

Benefits and costs
Overseas lorry eight times more likely to be in a crash
David Millward
Daily Telegraph, 22 September 2008

     Foreign lorry drivers are eight times more likely to be involved in a serious or fatal accident than their British counterparts, figures show. ...
     With foreign lorries accounting for one per cent of the total in the country, the proportion of accidents in which they are involved is far greater.
     Campaigners say foreign lorries are not maintained to the same safety levels as British ones.
     More than one in five trucks operated by overseas hauliers have been found to be unroadworthy.

Benefits and costs – housing
Government funded website telling immigrants how to get free housing
Martin Beckford
Daily Telegraph, 9 September 2008

     The Housing Rights site offers advice to new arrivals in Britain on what welfare assistance they qualify for and how to claim it.
     It also tells them how to take legal action if they think they have been denied a home on the grounds of their race. ...
     It is part of a three-year project called Opening Doors run by the Chartered Institute of Housing and the Housing Associations' Charitable Trust, which has been given £120,000 by the Department for Communities and Local Government to help migrants settle in Britain. ...
     Mark Wallace, campaign director for the TaxPayers' Alliance pressure group, said: "This sends out a deplorable message to migrants about Britain as a whole, and also about what we would hope they would contribute to the country.
     "We should be welcoming people with assistance on how to get a job swiftly and join the hard-working majority of people, not on the quickest and easiest way to tap into benefits."
     He added: "I'm not aware of a special website for people who have paid taxes here their whole lives."
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
Immigration is 'big boost for economy'
Daily Telegraph, 26 August 2008

     The economic benefits of immigration have been underestimated by the Government, according to an influential think-tank.
     Immigrant workers fill gaps and do jobs British workers do not want, says a report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR). But it found that employers and local economies were not reaping the full benefits because many migrants were staying for short periods instead of settling in Britain.
     The IPPR said local economies benefited because might have different skills that could lead to the establishment of new types of businesses and they tended to be more entrepreneurial.
     Immigrants could also expand the market for local businesses by establishing links to their countries of origin.
     IPPR analysis of statistics showed that more than a million immigrants came to Britain from the eight countries that joined the EU in May 2004 but about half of those had now returned home. The report recommends that local councils and the Government ensure they are doing enough to attract and retain immigrants.

Benefits and costs – multiculturalism, housing, education
Britons who feel they are losing out to immigrants
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 21 July 2008

     Immigrants raise fears of limited prospects among the British
     Many Britons fear their prospects are being limited because of the pressure put on housing and schools by immigrants arriving in the UK, a new report warns.
     The claims come as it emerged that £1 billion is being spent on putting up foreigners in council houses – despite two million people waiting for a home.
     The report, titled Immigration and Social Cohesion in the UK, uncovered a stark divide in how parts of the UK adapt to new migrants.
     While many people value their children growing up with cultural diversity, some feel their opportunities are reduced because of immigration.
     There was particular concern around the competition for social housing, soaring house prices and school places.
     Report author Mary Hickman, a Professor at London Metropolitan University, said: "We found that although many British people value the UK for being multi-ethnic and multicultural, poverty and lack of opportunities undermine social cohesion especially in certain parts of our towns and cities.
     "A key factor influencing whether new migrants are accepted is the dominant story in each locality about who belongs there."
     The report also suggested that Gordon Brown should spend focus on tackling poverty rather than a "fixed notion" of Britishness to improve social cohesion.
     Since taking over as Prime Minister last July, Mr Brown has consistently emphasised the importance of Britishness to bind the nation together.
     However the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggested that his time might be better spent dealing with "deprivation and how people connect".
     The competition for a limited supply of council housing has been one of the areas of key concern in the debate about immigration.
     Since Labour came to power in 1997 the number of people on the waiting list for a council house has soared by 650,000 to 1.67 million households.
     Figures obtained by the Conservative MP James Clappison show that nearly £1 billion is being spent on putting up foreigners in council houses –despite nearly two million households waiting for a new home.
     Parliamentary answers show that 7,000 council houses were rented to foreigners from both inside and outside the European Union in 2006/7.
     Given that it costs £134,000 to provide a council house, this means that £938 million – including £430 million of grants – is spent on providing social housing for foreigners.
     Mr Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said: "This is one more example of the pressure placed upon housing and services by the present very high level of immigration permitted by the Government.
     "The Government is completely failing to take into account the consequences of its policies".
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – multiculturalism, housing
Immigration: 'Britishness' will not help integration, say researchers
Sara Gaines
The Guardian, 21 July 2008

     Tackling deprivation and boosting social interaction would do more to reduce hostility to immigrants than trying to create a sense of Britishness, a report said today.
     Concerns over limited housing and school places in some parts of the UK are undermining attempts to ensure new migrants are well received, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
     It found a stark divide between places well equipped to adapt to new migrants and those that are not.
     In areas people perceived as homogeneous and settled, there were more fears about the effects of immigration. Tensions were far lower in areas where there was a long history of immigration.
     "There is no simple relationship between high levels of diversity and poor cohesion," researchers concluded.
     "What many people welcome is the opportunity to meet people in their area at social occasions, or at cultural events and festivals, and to exercise the choice of, selectively, getting to know people better."
     The research, Immigration and Social Cohesion in the UK, found many people welcomed cultural diversity, but tensions arose where people felt their prospects were reduced because of immigration.
     "Although many British people value the UK for being multi-ethnic and multicultural, poverty and lack of opportunities undermine social cohesion especially in certain parts of our towns and cities," said the lead researcher, professor Mary Hickman.
     Residents across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland were interviewed for the study between 2005 and 2007.
     It found diverse feelings on Britishness, with minority ethnic long-term residents and new arrivals the most positive about Britain.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – unpaid fines
Foreign drivers speed off without paying £10m fines
Ben Leach
Sunday Telegraph, 29 June 2008

     Foreign drivers get away with not paying 180,000 speeding and parking fines every year because British authorities cannot trace them.
     The Sunday Telegraph used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain speeding ticket figures from 15 police forces. They showed that foreign drivers in those areas fail to pay 27,000 speeding fines annually – pointing to a nationwide total of about 80,000 unpaid speeding fines a year.
     The motorists can escape justice over the fines, which total more than £10 million, because police, councils and speed camera authorities are not able to obtain their details. Statistics released by 36 local authorities also show that foreign drivers got away without paying 54,000 parking fines a year, pointing to a nationwide total of 105,000 unpaid fines. ...
     There are 140,000 foreign-registered vehicles on Britain's roads at any one time and three million enter the country each year.
     The largest group are Polish-registered vehicles, which account for 36 per cent of those in Britain, followed by French vehicles at 10 per cent and German vehicles at 9 per cent.

Benefits and costs – births, health services
Shortage of nurses and cots a threat to babies, claim MPs
Rebecca Smith
Daily Telegraph, 17 June 2008

     The lives of newborn babies are being put at risk by understaffed and overstretched neo-natal units, a report by a group of MPs has disclosed. ...
     Infant mortality figures are nearly three times as high in the Midlands as in parts of the South. The Department of Health admits that the target to close the gap by 10 per cent by 2010 is unlikely to be met, the report from the Public Accounts Committee says. A third of units are overcrowded and on average each unit has three vacancies for qualified nurses.
     Edward Leigh, MP, chairman of the public accounts committee, said: "Constraints in capacity mean that the Department of Health is still struggling to meet the demand for neo-natal services which has risen year on year. ..." ...
     The PAC report says obesity among mothers, older women having babies, deprivation, increasing use of fertility treatment and rising numbers of babies born to ethnic minority mothers is putting pressure on services.

Benefits and costs
£33m child benefit paid to foreign children who live abroad
Glen Owen
Daily Mail, 1 June 2008

     British child benefit paid to foreign children living abroad has rocketed by an astonishing 72 per cent in just nine months, to £33million a year.
     Most of the money is going on 36,000 children still in Poland whose parents are cashing in on European rules that let them claim benefits in the UK after working and paying taxes here for a year.
     Ministers were plunged into a new immigration row last night by the figures, only shortly after proposed tax rises for low-income British families sparked intense controversy.
     The huge bill for British taxpayers began with the EU's enlargement in 2004, leading to 800,000 workers from the new member countries moving to the UK.
     But it has escalated dramatically as word has spread among Polish communities in Britain, coupled with Polish-language newspapers publishing guides on how to claim the benefit.
     The new figures, released to Conservative Treasury spokesman Philip Hammond, reveal that in the nine months to March this year the number of workers from EU accession states claiming child benefit rose from 14,000 to 24,000.
     For Poland, the rise in six months was 43 per cent.
     Even larger amounts are paid out to East European workers in child tax credits, but the Government has refused to put a figure on that liability.
     The UK benefit is so attractive because it is £977 a year for the first child and £652 for young siblings – as opposed to £160 for each child in Poland.
     But the reciprocal agreement under European law means Britons working in that country get only the £160 from the Warsaw government.
     Mr Hammond said: "At a time when child poverty is rising, child-benefit money is being siphoned off to children who don't even live here.
     "The Government has no way of checking if these claims are genuine. ..." ...
     Sir Andrew Green, chairman of pressure group MigrationWatch, said: "It is ridiculous that we pay child benefit at British rates to be claimed in countries where the cost of living is one quarter of ours.
     "Having failed to foresee this, the Government should now renegotiate the requirement so that this benefit is tied to the cost of living."
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
James Kirkup
Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2008

     More than 100,000 of the eastern Europeans who have come to Britain in recent years are claiming benefits, official figures showed yesterday.
     Some 102,029 are receiving child benefit and an estimated 58,000 are receiving tax credits, Home Office data disclosed.
     The figures also showed that the number of eastern Europeans who have applied to work in Britain since their countries joined the EU in 2004 has reached 845,000.

Benefits and costs – business
UK 'reaping benefit' of immigration
The Press Association, 7 May 2008

     Eastern European immigrants to the UK have a higher employment rate than British citizens, a report reveals.
     An average 84% of workers from eight countries that joined the EU in 2004 have jobs - 9% higher than the UK-born average, according to Business for New Europe (BNE).
     Its report suggests the impact of the EU's biggest-ever expansion four years ago has benefited the UK and Eastern Europe equally.
     Since 2004 just over one million migrant workers have come to Britain from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Estonia.
     But nearly half have already emigrated again, leaving an estimated 665,000 people from the eight nations currently living in the UK.
     The BNE report contains articles from 22 business leaders in companies including ArcelorMittal, Tesco, Sainsbury, BT Group and Microsoft.
     They collectively hail EU expansion as a good thing. Roland Rudd, BNE chairman, said: "This expansion has transformed the accession countries, galvanised the European Union and also presented fresh opportunities for existing member states.
     "Britain, and businesses here, are reaping the benefits of an enlarged EU which has created a single market of 500 million consumers."
     The report said very few of the Eastern European migrants claimed state benefits - only 2.4% of those registering for NI numbers since 2004 did so to claim benefits.
     And, on average, immigrant workers put in 46 hours a week - four hours longer each week than UK-born workers.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – healthcare
Health tourist checks 'not done'
Phil Kemp
BBC, 3 May 2008

     About a third of hospitals in England and Wales are ignoring government advice to charge foreign visitors for NHS treatment. ...
     But a third of overseas visitor managers polled by their association admitted patients were not routinely asked about their entitlement. ...
     Tunde, not his real name, lives in Lagos in Nigeria and has been suffering with heart trouble for the past three years.
     But, instead of paying for treatment at home, he travels to the UK for free care on the NHS.
     "I have an NHS card. I registered it through the GP. I book an appointment with a GP and I am referred to the hospital," he said.
     Tunde has been making the trip as a health tourist twice a year for the last three years and says that he will continue doing it until he is better. ...
     For most non-EU nationals, treatment on the NHS which is not urgently necessary is chargeable.
     The government was so concerned about reports of foreign nationals receiving free treatment when they should be paying that it introduced tough new guidelines in 2004, designed to ensure that all hospitals checked the status of patients being admitted.
     But, four years on, the Donal MacIntyre programme on Radio 5 Live has learned the rules are widely ignored.
     Some overseas visitor managers in hospitals told the BBC that they found the guidelines confusing and described how some staff are uncomfortable checking patients' immigration status.
     One told the programme: "Staff are anxious of possible abuse not only by overseas visitors but also from people who feel it is unjust to be asked."
     A confidential report for the Department of Health released under the Freedom of Information Act last year estimated that £30m was lost in un-recovered debts from foreign visitors in 2004. ...
     The Department of Health is currently reviewing access to primary and secondary care for all foreign nationals and several hospitals are running pilot schemes where patients who are not eligible for free treatment have to pay at their bedside.
     Andy Finlay is the income generation manager at West Middlesex University Hospital, which is one of the hospitals involved in the scheme.
     He explained that one particularly blatant example of a health tourist prompted their involvement.
     "He said 'you have to treat me until I'm well and I'm not paying and there's nothing you can do about it'.
     "He came with a pre-existing heart condition and he knew it's free at the point of delivery in the UK. He abused us - he was a 100% bona fide health tourist."
     Since introducing their new policy, 20% of all patients admitted to A&E self-discharge before they are asked to pay for treatment, whereas before no patients left of their own accord.
     The hospital says they now recover 75% of debt from foreign visitors paying all fees, a much higher proportion that most other hospitals.
     Andy Finlay is hoping that the Department of Health will extend his idea across all hospitals.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – healthcare
Health tourists must pay, says hospital
Daily Telegraph, 1 May 2008

     A hospital is refusing to provide anything other than basic treatment for "health tourists" unless they pay first.
     West Middlesex University Hospital, which is near Heathrow airport, has started taking action – such as discharging heart attack patients after as little as 48 hours and taking credit card details – and hopes to save up to £500,000 a year. Patients were discharged only after being signed off by three consultants.
     Visitors from non-EU countries are not eligible for free treatment and are estimated to cost the NHS more than £50 million a year.

Benefits and costs
Migrant benefits
Daily Telegraph, 24 April 2008

     The British economy has been boosted by high levels of immigration over the past 10 years, a report has claimed.
     The Work Foundation think-tank said inflation and interest rates have been kept lower as a result of mass migration. It also suggested that skills and labour shortages had been avoided and the economy had been kept on a "stable growth path".

Benefits and costs
The Media's Delusional take on Multiculturalism [1]
Tim Murray
Canada Free Press, 11 April 2008

     According to the Edmonton Journal's editorial of April 4/08, "Prosperity in Diversity", Canadians are just loving the transformation of their cities.
      ...
     You know the old song. There is a labour shortage. Repeat that undocumented myth often enough and it becomes conventional wisdom and no inventory is taken of our national needs. So instead of training our own people we must reach out to the far corners of the world to solve it. The people we reach out to, naturally, must be people of colour, who will enrich us both culturally and economically because, you guessed it, they will solve the labour shortage that is alleged to exist. Much of it is the famous "they do work our own people won't do" kind. That is, our own people won't do it unless they are paid decent wages for it.
     Now, according to the Edmonton Journal, anyone who doesn't want their city bulging with people of colour is a bigot who belongs in the past. The rest of us are "celebrating" the new Canada. Celebrating higher density living, traffic jams, more pollution, more sprawl, loss of farmland, loss of wetlands, and species loss. About 70% of species at risk exist at the boundaries of the very cities that the Edmonton Journal is excited to report are bursting with ethnic minority growth. Canadians are exchanging treasured biological diversity for this vaunted "cultural diversity".
     One conspicuous feature of cultural diversity is ethnic gang warfare which, to borrow a phrase from the Edmonton Journal, has made "the cities of this country vastly more interesting." Multiculturalism has not only enriched our palates with its fine range of ethnic restaurants, it has enriched our crime scene, forcing our phlegmatic and unimaginative home- grown thugs to either shape up or find a new line of work. I know I was enriched, until I fled, along with tens of thousands of other WASPS to the hinterlands in search of respite from the lawlessness that diversity had wrought. But now diversity is following us. Last summer Asian gangs were reported to be hounding the formerly sleepy retirement city of Kelowna, B.C.
     The Edmonton Journal speaks of "changing realities and changing attitudes." Interesting. A poll conducted by CTV and the Globe and Mail between August 3-7 of 2005 found that 69% of Canadians opposed multiculturalism and favoured assimilation, and 55% thought immigration levels were too high. They were not asked if they wanted the country's ethnic composition changed, but of course, they were the ordinary people of Canada and journalists and parliamentarians know better anyway. A democrat would turn the question around: Name a federal government that had a mandate to change the ethnic profile of the nation? I think it is clear the Edmonton Journal does not have its finger on the pulse of public opinion anymore than the social engineers at the CBC. There has been no sea change in attitudes toward "diversity" since August 2005.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
The Media's Delusional take on Multiculturalism [2]
Tim Murray
Canada Free Press, 11 April 2008

     Why is there such subterranean discontent with multiculturalism in Canada, and elsewhere? Of course there is resentment with the concept of our own government requiring us to accommodate to the customs and sensibilities of newcomers rather than the reverse. But the perception of there being rampant, disproportionate ethnic crime is a common denominator of much antagonism to the multicultural nature of immigrant populations in Europe, Australia and North America. In the United States 27% of all inmates of federal prisons are illegal aliens and their violent crime statistics are appalling. In the United Kingdom 60% of London's muggings are committed by blacks and 31% of all street robberies are committed by West Indians. Ethnic crimes don't happen in Canada because the federal government won't collect ethnic crime statistics. ... ...
     There is something about diversity which is less tangible but more corrosive to society than violence. That is its apparent role as an agency of fragmentation and the loss of a sense of civic duty. Dr. Ernest Healy's study, in concert with others by Harvard's Robert Putnam, Irenaus-Eibesfeldt and Pierre van den Berghe would contest the notion of "unity in diversity". A senior research fellow at the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University, Healy challenges the idea that ethnic diversity leads to a stronger, more cohesive society. In fact, it can hasten a withdrawal from collective life as manifested in Australia by lower rates of volunteerism by even second-generation immigrant residents. "When you create societies from mixed backgrounds it may lead to withdrawal from the civic sphere," Dr. Healy said, "a feeling of less connectedness." As one commentator remarked, "Few cultures actually put the nation ahead of their own families. The Civic Culture of Northern Europe and North/East Asia is the exception, not the rule. If the people of the Civic Culture are replaced by people without those values, the Civic Culture ceases to exist." ...
     And what of the economic benefits of multicultural immigration? How much prosperity is there in "diversity"? The problem with boastful pro-immigration claims is that they never take account of the enormous costs that migrants incur in social services, costs borne by resident taxpayers. In early April 2008, for example the British Peers economics affairs committee made a mockery of long-standing government claims that foreign workers added 6 billion pounds each year to the wealth of the nation. On the contrary, they concluded that the benefits of immigration to the resident population were close to zero in the long run. And the Lords report never even touched the horrendous environmental impacts of Tony Blair's demographic onslaught upon water, food production, greenspace, farmland, GHG emissions, pollution and quiet. Britons might ask, what price diversity?
     In America the price is $152 billion lost each year to American workers in job displacement and wages to immigration, according to Harvard's Dr. George Borjas. Each immigrant legal or illegal costs American taxpayers $9,000 annually, according to the Manhattan Institute while each unskilled immigrant and his family costs the treasury $22,000 annually according to a 2007 study done by the Heritage Foundation. The Grubel study done for the Fraser Institute reached similar conclusions for Canada. $18 billion more was paid out in services to unskilled presumably third world immigrants than was recovered in taxes from them - annually. So I hope you enjoyed your goat curry, you paid through the nose for it.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs – housing, education, health care
Mass immigration raises house prices, say peers
Robert Winnett
Daily Telegraph, 1 April 2008

     The unprecedented influx of immigrants will make houses unaffordable for millions of British people, an authoritative parliamentary report concludes today.
     Immigration is already having a dramatic impact on house prices but, according to the House of Lords economic affairs committee, the cost of the average property will rise to more than 10 times the average wage as a result of the influx. ...
     Research from the financial firm Goldman Sachs calculates that a one per cent increase in the number of households increases house prices by eight per cent in the short term. The increase falls to six per cent as more houses are built. ...
     The committee recommended: "Immigration is one of many factors contributing to more demand for housing and higher house prices. Housing matters alone should not dictate immigration policy but they should be an important consideration when assessing the economic impacts of immigration on the resident population in the UK."
     

800,000 pupils who are not English

Benefits and costs – transport
Foreign lorries 'pose higher risk'
Daily Telegraph, 31 March 2008

     Foreign lorry drivers are breaking British safety laws and risking lives, with accident figures rocketing in the past five years, a television programme warns.
     Killer Lorries: Tonight – to be shown on ITV1 this evening – says that foreign trucks are three times more likely to be involved in accidents. In 2006 44 people were killed and 1,322 injured in collisions with foreign heavy goods vehicles.

Benefits and costs
Migration has brought 'zero' economic benefit
Philip Johnston and Robert Winnett
Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2008

     Ten years of record immigration to Britain has produced virtually no economic benefits for the country, a parliamentary inquiry has found.
     A House of Lords committee, which is due to report next Tuesday, will call into question Government claims that foreign workers add £6 billion each year to the wealth of the nation.
     It is expected to say this must be balanced against the increase in population and their use of local services such as health and education, resulting in little benefit per head of the population.
     "Our overall conclusion is that the economic benefits of net immigration to the resident population are small and close to zero in the long run," the report will say.
     Thy findings of the Lords economics committee threaten to demolish the key argument made by ministers to justify the highest levels of immigration in the country's history.
     The inquiry by the committee, which includes two former chancellors and several former Cabinet ministers, is the first to try to balance the costs and benefits of large-scale immigration.

Benefits and costs – employment
Skilled migrants 'will give £77bn boost to UK'
Peter Taylor
Daily Telegraph, 25 March 2008

     The number of skilled migrant workers in the UK will climb 14pc within four years to top 800,000, new research has indicated.
     A report by recruitment consultants Harvey Nash said skilled migrants will account for 2.8pc of the British workforce by 2012, up from 2.5pc now, with the value of their output climbing more than a third to almost £50bn.
     Harvey Nash chief executive Albert Ellis said that, in addition, the group supported 650,000 more jobs through spending on goods and services.
     The total contribution of skilled migrants to the UK economy will hit £77bn annually within four years, the report said, with IT, telecommunications and transport sectors benefiting most. The majority come from the European Union, with London the principal destination.

Benefits and costs
£28m in child benefit is paid to families living in Poland
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 8 March 2008

     British taxpayers are paying £28 million in child benefit for youngsters living in eastern Europe, it was disclosed last night.
     The figures, given in a Commons written answer, show that by the end of last year about 34,000 children of migrant workers were getting British state handouts, even though they do not live here.
     The vast majority live in Poland and have parents who have come to Britain since their country was allowed to join the European Union in April 2004.
     More than half a million Poles have since registered for jobs in the UK together with another 300,000 people from seven other eastern European nations.
     This does not include the self-employed – who have probably pushed the numbers of those who have come seeking work above the one million mark.
     Once EU nationals have been working and paying tax in Britain for 12 months, they are entitled to the same level of state support as any British citizen.
     This includes benefit for their children, even if they are in another EU country.
     They can claim benefit worth £941 per year for a first child or £629 per year for younger siblings.
     In Poland, the benefits system pays a maximum of around £160 per year in child benefit.
     Philip Hammond, the Conservative treasury spokesman, said: "There are 3.8 million British children living in poverty. Yet we are sending £28 million of taxpayers' money abroad every year because our benefits system is such a shambles."
     He added: "When will Gordon Brown get a grip on this situation?
     "We know that billions of pounds are being lost to benefit fraud every year in Britain, so how on earth is the Government going to check these payments to children who aren't even here?"
     Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, recently announced a Whitehall review to see if the EU rules could be tightened up or reformed.
     However, Whitehall officials believe it would require a new deal among the 27 European Union countries to close the loophole.
     HM Revenue and Customs says claimants have to provide evidence to support claims for children abroad, such as a birth certificate.
     It is thought that even larger sums are being paid out to Eastern European workers in child tax credits – financial support that is provided through the tax system for those with children or on lower incomes.
     This could push the total payouts to more than £50 million but ministers say these figures are "not available". ...
     Polish newspapers regularly run features explaining exactly how to claim benefits in the UK.

Benefits and costs – employment, politics
An immigration policy bought and paid for? [part 1]
Tim Murray, director of Immigration Watch Canada
(We) Can Do Better [website], 24 February 2008
[Note: all dollar figures given are in US dollars]

     The numbers are unequivocal. For a decade polls have consistently recorded a wide discrepancy between the attitude of ordinary Americans toward immigration and the attitude of those who govern them. And the gap has been growing. In 2002 a poll conducted by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations found that 60% of the public thought current immigration levels to be a "critical threat to the vital interests of the United States," as compared to only 14% of the country's leadership. This 46% gap compared to a 37% gap revealed by a 1998 poll. 70% felt that reducing illegal immigration should be a "very important" foreign policy goal compared to only 22% of the political elite.
     Polling done by TM, inc. in October 2006 confirmed these results. While the U.S. Senate passed a bill (S2611) supporting a large increase in legal immigration, 68% of voters thought the number of immigrants, legal or illegal, was too high, 34 times the number who said it was too "low". 71% said that low paying jobs could easily be filled if employers paid American workers decent wages rather than import low-skill labour. And 62% agreed with a statement that Canadian viewers of CBC immigration sob stories have frequently observed, "The media coverage of illegal immigrants is mostly devoted to human interest stories like how illegals risk their lives (to get here), rather than the costs they create and the Americans, particularly low-wage American workers, who may be harmed by their being here."
     The polling company Inc./Woman Trend in October of 2006 found 66% in agreement that the population increase caused by the present level of immigration would negatively impact the environment. A Zogbylcis poll of April 2006 revealed that 67% of Americans wanted less immigration to promote the assimilation of those who were already here. A poll conducted a month earlier by the same company found that 60% wanted their congressional representative to support more restrictive immigration policies. ...
     The question that these poll results beg is why? Why the cleavage between leaders and led? The anti-immigration sentiment of America's middle and working class is easily accounted for. According to Centre for Immigration Studies data, in the decade preceding 2003, immigration increased the supply of people without a high school education by 21% and the supply of other workers by 4%. Rudimentary economic theory suggests that the more poorly skilled workers there are, the less money they'll make – a fact confirmed by the National Research Council in their findings that about half the drop in real wages for high school drop-outs from 1980 to 1994 was due to immigration. A report by the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Centre found that Americans and established immigrants suffer an 11% wage drop when they work alongside new Hispanic immigrants. Harvard Professor Dr. George Borgias has accumulated similar data and has made the shocking assertion that American workers lose an incredible $152 billion per year in wages from immigration.
     Immigration provides a ready-made source of cheap labour, ... it weakens the bargaining power of American-born workers and reduces the clout of their unions, if they still have them. ... Writer Rich Lowry made the best assessment: "No wonder corporate America loves our open borders: they serve as a kind of rolling reverse minimum wage law." And no wonder the late African-American liberal Congressman Barbara Jordan called for cutting back immigration in the 1990s. She was defending her constituency of low-income black workers, the first casualty of the corporate welfare program of high- level immigration, marketed by the left as "multicultural enrichment". Cultural diversity is the fig leaf of naked corporate exploitation.
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Benefits and costs – employment, politics
An immigration policy bought and paid for? [part 2]
Tim Murray
(We) Can Do Better [website], 24 February 2008

     So blue-collar attitudes to immigration are easily explained, ordinary people are simply following their class interests. And class interests can explain the open borders position taken up by America's opinion leaders and decision makers too. They are much more affluent and educated than the people they lead and attempt to influence, and feel no threat from the illegal immigrants they hire as nannies and gardeners or tip at fine restaurants. One thing is central to the understanding of the immigration divide in the United States, and that is to divest oneself of the almost universal and persistent belief that somehow the Democrats are white knights who represent the working class, the poor and the environment, while the Republicans are the incarnation of power, privilege and plutocracy. To assist you in this task you should be apprised of the following.
     A TM Inc poll of 2006 disclosed that those most apt to be satisfied with the current level of immigration which is killing American working class living standards were 25-34 year old liberal college graduates and professionals who identified with the Democratic Party. The same poll found though that it was 35-44 year old conservative Republicans who favoured large-scale round-ups of illegal immigrants. That profiles the supporters of the pro and anti-immigration positions, but the current party leadership positions could best be ascertained by the fact that as of the end of January 2008, all Republican contenders rejected the legalization of "undocumented" immigrants now in the U. S., while the Democrats continue to support it.
     The true alignment of the Democratic Party with corporate interests can be vividly illustrated by a look at campaign financing. McCain, Clinton and Obama are, to put it bluntly, Wall Street candidates. The big banks, the financial firms, corporate law firms and private equity firms pay the pipers. But, according the Centre for Responsive Politics (CRP) (www.opensecrets.org), the Democrats are the clear favourite. Hillary Clinton took in $106.1 million and Barack Obama $102.1 million for all of 2007. McCain received substantially less at $41,102,178. Hillary Clinton received $1.3 million from private equity firms, while Obama received $1 million. McCain finished a distant fourth at $395,000. Wall Street promotes the candidates who serve its interests and the Democrats have delivered for them since their November 2006 victory.
     Democratic leaders buried a proposal to tax the massive incomes of hedge fund operators at normal tax rates, allowing billionaires to claim most of their income as capital gains taxed at a far lower rate. Clinton and Obama have also refused action on the subprime meltdown that would have threatened big financial interests. Corporate law firms gave Clinton over $11 million and Obama over $9 million. McCain only got just over two and a half million dollars, the most for Republican candidates. As of February 22, 2008, bagmen have raised over $138 million for Obama, over $134 million for Clinton, and over $53 million for McCain.
     Most interesting is the disposition of "Silicon" money. Between 1998 and 2006 almost $83 million in political contributions in the form of individuals donations, PAC contributions, and soft money were made by 40 technology companies. Amounting on average to just $295,708 per company per year of lobbying, it was money well spent. The concession Bill Gates wanted, the H-1B Visa program that allows cheap technology workers into the country, reaped profits a hundred times that investment. But Microsoft wanted to be more certain the fix was in. Over that that seven year period they gave $5,7888,286, with half of Congress on its payroll it would seem. AT+T donated $3,504,773, Apple $3,620,823, and Vericon $4,237,884. ...

Benefits and costs – employment, politics
An immigration policy bought and paid for? [part 3]
Tim Murray
(We) Can Do Better [website], 24 February 2008

     The most revealing fact to be gleaned from presidential campaign donation statistics is one found when donation records are subjected to sector analysis. If one studies 12 business or professional sectors of American society from Agribusiness to Construction to Health to Labour etc., there is one sector that is clearly salient – the "financial-real estate" sector. It has contributed over $73 million to various campaigns, $25 million more than any other sector.
     Real estate interests (including mortgage brokers, homebuilders and property developers) gave $4.8 million to Clinton, $2.7 million to Obama and $1.9 million to McCain. The conventional interpretation of their motive is that they want access to the winner when an expected crackdown over predatory lending and a troubled housing finance system reaches the top of the legislative agenda. But there is an alternative, or at least supplementary explanation. One that has been advanced by Australian population sociologist Sheila Newman. The land tenure system that characterizes Anglo-American societies encourages speculation, and much money is to be made simply by population growth. Newman has written extensively to demonstrate that real estate developers are key players in lobbying for mass immigration. US campaign donation records seem to vindicate her hypothesis, as does the fact that a nation like France is close to achieving population stability because the real estate development industry cannot exist as an agent for growth, given that land cannot consistently be reduced to a speculative commodity largely because of the way tenure is arranged.
     What then became of the candidates who challenged the corporate open borders agenda? Their campaigns died from lack of funds. Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado is a case in point. Wall Street likes pro-immigration candidates for obvious reasons and so they will reward those who sing their tune. Tancredo insisted on singing an objectionable note, like a three year moratorium on immigration. So he paid the price and collected just $6 million dollars or less than 6% of what Clinton received by year's end and was forced to end his campaign. Clinton at that time was Wall Street's anointed one, someone who, in the words of Numbers USA, "consistently pressed for U. S. population growth, immigration and foreign labour importation." But of course such an agenda of unabashed greed needs always to be camouflaged with a politician's candy floss, the spin is what they are purchased for. So Clinton obliged her corporate donors by saying that "we should always be open to legal immigration-it reforms, it makes us better." Well, it certainly makes a few of us richer Hillary, doesn't it, like your donors and supporters, the most well-heeled of either party!
     An examination of Clinton's voting record should confirm that big business is getting what it paid for. Clinton was co-sponsor of Bill S-2109 to help employees import cheap high tech workers while the big law firms who give to her campaign are counseling them how to use the legal system to avoid hiring qualified U.S. workers. Her support of Senate bill 2109 helped expedite the processing of the infamous H-1B visas that depress wages and displace workers. She supported an amnesty of illegal agricultural workers (S bill 1340) and another one of a similar nature (S. bill 2137) that would have brought an amnesty to another 860,000 workers not counting family. Clinton's support of Kennedy's bill S 2381 would have meant amnesty to almost all illegal aliens. Her numerous attempts to sponsor "shamnesty" bills is reflective of a comment she made to a man who said that his wife was an illegal immigrant. "No woman is illegal", Clinton replied.

Benefits and costs – employment, politics
An immigration policy bought and paid for? [part 4]
Tim Murray
(We) Can Do Better [website], 24 February 2008

     If Hillary's record is atrocious, it is doubtful if Obama's is any better. His positions seem almost indistinguishable from Clinton's, the difference being more one of emphasis than policy. He supports employer verification of employee identity to deter the hiring of illegals, she doesn't. She favours lower legal immigration intakes, he doesn't. Obama's main focus is the human rights and economic needs – of those knocking at America's door wanting to come in and those already in, legally or illegally. On the Senate floor he stated on May 23, 2007 that "Where we can re-unite families, we should. Where we can bring in more foreign-born workers with skills our economy needs, we should." This was an ominous declaration. Since the law was changed in 1965 to create the so-called family re-unification system, "chain migration" – where an immigrant sponsors several others who in turn sponsors several more – has caused the numbers under this category to spiral out of control. In 36 years the number of immediate relatives admitted was over 13 times higher than it was when the law was first enacted to almost one-half million per year.
     An Obama policy statement maintains support for "improvements in our visa programs, including the H-1B programs, to attract some of the world's most talented people to America." But H-1B visa holders are not paid as much as Americans, and even Microsoft admits that salaries have not kept pace with inflation. That would do much to explain a so-called labour shortage in the field. As for Obama's goal of attracting the best and the brightest, the vast majority of H-1B holders make in the $60,000 range (Intel's median salary is $65,000), but top talents in the industry capture more than $100,000. And ironically the great majority of awards for innovation have fallen to Americans, indicating that the industry is not shackled by a domestic cognitive deficit that needs relief by a massive injection of foreign Einsteins. The quest for the best and brightest of overseas talent is a smokescreen for the tech corporations' prime motive, the hunt not for the brightest minds but those that come at the cheapest price. And the H-1B program doesn't even require employers to give hiring priority to qualified American citizens, and they have an arsenal of legal measures to reject those who apply. If one is given to wonder why a U.S. Congress would expand the H-1B program in 2000 when their employers, the American taxpayers, most of whom are workers, were not its obvious beneficiaries, Utah Senator Bob Bennett's comment would be informational: "There were, in fact, a whole lot (of Congressmen) against it, but because they are tapping the high-tech community for campaign contributions, they don't want to admit that in public."
     John McCain, the only Republican contender left standing, were it not for his title as waterboy for Iraq, could run for the Democrats. He got the ball rolling in 1986 when he signed the 1986 amnesty for illegals and thereby gave the green light for aspiring border-crossers who knew that American law could be violated with impunity and trespass retroactively forgiven. He ran his nomination race on a full-throttle amnesty platform until he found religion earlier this year and back-pedaled. He has voted for S-1639 to double legal immigration, to continue chain migration and the ridiculous annual jackpot lottery of 50,000 applicants from third world nations called "Diversity Immigration". McCain's problem is that he is a dark horse and Wall Street, while hedging its bets, likes to back winners. So his take of their money is but one-third of Obama's and Clinton's.
     ...

Benefits and costs – employment, politics
An immigration policy bought and paid for? [part 5]
Tim Murray, director of Immigration Watch Canada
(We) Can Do Better [website], 24 February 2008

     The most disappointing feature of the American immigration dialogue is its one-dimensional nature. Two critical elements are virtually absent from the arguments presented by both open and closed borders advocates. One is that both sides talk about what attracts Mexican labour to America, and therefore the measures for turning them away. But no one talks about the conditions in Mexico that drove people to take desperate risks to get to the United States and who is responsible for those conditions. When is America going to look in the mirror and admit that the larcenous NAFTA agreement and rapacious rampage of multinational corporations undercut a viable Mexican economy and the basis for a decent life for so many Mexicans? When are American politicians and opinion-makers going to acknowledge that much of American prosperity is built on the backs of those people and others like them in the hemisphere and the world? All the measures proposed by the anti-immigrationist forces are necessary, but by no means sufficient to defend the borders. America cannot play King Canute and hold back a tide of billions. It must reduce the tide by ensuring that the billions do not want to leave home. Scrap the trade agreements, the IMF, SAPs (Structural Adjustment Policies) and offer restitution to rebuild economies that have been pillaged.
     Aside from NAFTA, there is another crucial phrase missing from US immigration discussions. Carrying capacity. Each year the United States adds the equivalent of another Chicago. During the Bush administration it has grown by 21 million people. Immigrants, their children and grandchildren will account for 82% of all population growth in the years leading up to 2050, when the country will reach a staggering 438 million if this growth rate is not slowed. Some worry about assimilation, since the share of non-Hispanic whites will fall from 67 to 47%. Obviously the labour market is the focus of most, who would share Samuel Gompers's conviction that "immigration is fundamentally a labour issue." But full employment and economic prosperity in a culturally or linguistically cohesive America would be a pyrrhic accomplishment if such a nation were to rest on a collapsing ecosystem. Can America sustain half its current population when critical resource shortages appear or biodiversity services are compromised ? The works of analysts like David Pimental, Dale Pfeiffer and Richard Heinberg do not inform any Congressional debate about how many people the country should admit. Clearly a Population Plan is overdue.
     The American people have spoken on immigration but the political elite will not listen because they are paid by their corporate benefactors not to listen. It is sad to see the world's greatest democratic experiment come to such grief. The Founding Fathers devised a system that they embedded in a constitution with mechanisms to counter-act the natural instinct of the political class to usurp power and exercise it as a permanent elite dominating pauperized subjects on the old European model. They counted on a "vigilant and manly spirit" that animates the American people to breath life and vigour into the constitution. But alas, the Founding Fathers couldn't possibly foresee the power and the scale of Wall Street money.
     In America today, anything's for sale, even democracy. I hear a Senator earmarked for the White House can be had, for, oh around 134-138 million. Sound right?
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
Benefit cuts for migrants under citizenship plan
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 21 February 2008

     Britain could link citizenship to benefits for the first time as part of a plan to cut the millions of pounds paid to immigrants from eastern Europe.
     Immigrants would not receive a passport until they had lived in the country for several years under the new plan, and during this "probationary period" they would not be allowed to claim the full range of welfare handouts such as child benefit and income support.
     Polish families are currently claiming more than £20 million a year for thousands of children who remain in their homeland.
     They get a better deal in Britain than in their own country, where payments are means tested. Under European regulations, migrant workers living in Britain are entitled to full family benefits – even if their dependants stay behind.
     Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced a Whitehall review only to see if these rules could be tightened up. However, it would require a new deal among the 27 European Union countries.
     The review forms part of a wider range of reforms to immigration rules and citizenship rights. A Green Paper published by the Home Office yesterday said that new arrivals from outside the EU would be required to pay more for their visas to meet some of the costs to public services.

Benefits and costs
Money transfer charter helps your cash arrive safely
Liz King
Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2008

     A staggering £2.3bn is transferred from the UK each year as people increasingly send money abroad to relatives and friends, but the biggest worry is getting it there safely.
     Much of this money goes to developing countries – more than 50 around the world – with £300m going to India and £200m to Pakistan, with Nigeria, Jamaica and Ghana next on the list. ...
     A new Remittance Customer Charter has been introduced to help those sending money abroad, ...
     The charter, created by the Department for International Development (DFID) through the UK Remittance Task Force, will ensure that firms that sign up will give clear, transparent information in a standard format to the consumer.

Benefits and costs
Pakistanis ignoring dangers of cousins marrying, says MP
Sarah Womack
Daily Telegraph, 12 February 2008

     British Pakistanis are "in denial" about the increased risk of birth defects among the children of married cousins, a Labour MP claimed yesterday.
     Ann Cryer said that many marriages of Muslims in Bradford were between cousins and could have "tragic" impacts. She called for community leaders to encourage debate which, she believed, would move more families away from marriages between cousins.
     Mrs Cryer raised the issue two years ago after research showed that British Pakistanis were 13 times more likely to have children with disorders than the general population. ...
     Steve Jones, professor of genetics at University College London, agreed that there was a higher risk of defects but drinking or smoking in pregnancy was "as bad if not worse". ...
     Prof Jones said: "Let's bear in mind that families like the Rothschilds married their cousins frequently."
     Cousin marriages were quite common in Spain and in Muslim communities worldwide, he said.

Benefits and costs – marriage
Minister warns over in-breeding in Asians
James Kirkup
Daily Telegraph, 11 February 2008

     Arranged marriages between British Asians raise the risk of in-breeding and birth defects, a Government minister has said.
     Phil Woolas, a junior environment minister, came under fire from Muslim groups already concerned about the public reaction to the Archbishop of Canterbury's remarks about sharia law.
     Mr Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, said that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. ...
     The Muslim Public Affairs Committee, a campaign group, suggested the minister was demonising British Muslims. ...
     Arranged marriages are common among several British Asian groups, but intermarriage of relatives is a particular characteristic of people of Pakistani origin.
     It is estimated that more than 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins, resulting in an increasing rate of genetic defects and high rates of infant mortality. Figures show that British Pakistani children account for as many as one third of birth defects despite making up only three per cent of all UK births.

Benefits and costs – hospitals
£350m maternity bill for foreign mothers
Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2008

     Britain pays £350 million a year to provide maternity services to mothers born outside the country, according to a BBC analysis.
     While the birth rate among British-born women has dropped, the number of immigrants giving birth has risen by three quarters.
     The sudden rise has put such pressure on maternity services that many cannot cope and are having to turn women away. Immigrant women are more likely to suffer complications, requiring emergency caesarean sections and often are not known to health services until they are in labour.
     When Tony Blair came to power in 1997, the NHS spent around a billion pounds a year on maternity services, with one baby in eight delivered to a foreign-born mother. Ten years on, spending has risen to £1.6 billion with almost one baby in four delivered to a mother born overseas, according to an analysis by the BBC's Ten o'Clock News.
     While the number of babies born to British mothers has fallen by 44,000 a year since the mid-1990s, the figure for babies born to foreign mothers has risen by 64,000. The overall birth rate is at its highest level for 26 years.

Benefits and costs
Poles claim £20m benefits in UK for children back home
Daily Telegraph, 29 January 2008

     Polish families are claiming more than £20 million a year in benefits for thousands of children living outside Britain, it emerged yesterday.
     Under European regulations, migrant workers living in Britain are entitled to full family benefits, even if their children remain behind in their home country.
     Following the influx of workers from eastern Europe in the wake of the expansion of the EU nearly four years ago, more than 16,000 Poles alone have submitted child benefit claims. They cover 26,000 children living in Poland, at a cost to the taxpayer of £21.4 million a year. The figures were disclosed by Jane Kennedy, the financial secretary to the Treasury, in answer to a written question ...
     She refused to say how much of another benefit, child tax credit, was being claimed by Polish workers for families living overseas, ...
     In Poland, parents are not universally entitled to child benefit, and any payments are means-tested.

Benefits and costs
Cost of migrants
Cllr David Ashton, Deputy leader, Harrow Council
Daily Telegraph, 25 January 2008
[Letter to the Editor]

     As evidence presented to the Treasury select committee this week shows, the Government is indeed detached from reality when it comes to the costs of immigration and a changing diversity.
     My own local authority is a clear illustration of the point. We are the fifth most ethnically diverse borough in England and Wales, and currently incur substantial extra costs looking after that diverse population, plus the growing number of migrants who come to the area.
     Migrant skills are always welcome, and we consider diversity to be a strength. But we need to underline that there is a cash cost for the local authorities which are on the front line of caring for those populations. Until the government grant settlement recognises these seismic changes, we will all strain to cope.

Benefits and costs
Call for tougher action on foreign car drivers
Daily Telegraph, 9 January 2008

     A police officer yesterday called for tough action on foreign drivers who break the law in Britain after a 25-year-old was killed by a Polish woman driving the wrong way around a roundabout.
     Superintendent Mick Doyle, the head of roads policing for Thames Valley Police, said the number of migrants coming in to the country but not forced by law to take a British driving test had caused a huge problem on the roads.

Benefits and costs
The price of cutting migration
Daily Telegraph, 9 January 2008

     Cutting immigration levels could put 9p on income tax, a think tank told peers yesterday. The Institute of Public Policy Research also questioned whether newcomers were taking hundreds of thousands of jobs from British-born workers.
     The institute claimed that if the Government adopted a zero net migration policy then working-age people would have to pay more tax to support far more dependants in decades to come.

Benefits and costs – NHS
Immigrants 'stretching the NHS'
Daily Telegraph, 31 December 2007

     The Health Service is being pushed to breaking point by Eastern European immigrants, an NHS source claimed in a Sunday newspaper yesterday.
     The Department of Health is said to have expected to treat an extra 150,000 patients since eight countries joined the EU in 2004. But hospitals and GPs have reportedly dealt with that number every year since Britain opened its doors.
     ... The Government insisted services were not being stretched. A Health Department spokesman added: We are talking about people who are legally entitled to live in this country and access the NHS."

Benefits and costs
Politicians aren't making economic sense
Irwin Stelzer
Daily Telegraph, 14 November 2007

     Immigration is another area of muddle. There are 600,000 known job vacancies, while millions of sensible potential British workers, the very ones for whom the Prime Minister wants to create British jobs, have become layabouts. Or, to use the technical jargon, economically inactive. Some are physically unable to work. But for millions who have joined the lists of the disabled during this era of increasing health and longevity, and many of those of the dole, it would be irrational to work when the pay for staying home is better. ...
     So the first step in forging a sensible immigration policy is to reduce the demand for immigrant labour by increasing the supply of British workers.
      ...
     The second step would be to meet the legitimate complaints of the native population that is bearing the high social costs of immigration - crowded schools, overloaded health facilities and the like. Employers are getting a free ride: they have the benefit of often-cheaper foreign labour and pass on the social costs. Solution: employers to pay a fee equal to those costs for every immigrant hired, the proceeds to go to the affected community. Supplement that by raising the cost of employing illegal immigrants further - by jailing employers who knowingly hire them - and economic reason will have replaced some of the populist posturing that dominates debate about immigration policy.

Benefits and costs
Immigration officials got £7m bonus despite errors
James Kirkup
Daily Telegraph, 13 November 2007

     Immigration officials involved in a string of fiascos have been paid £7 million in bonuses, it emerged yesterday.
     Staff at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate of the Home Office got nearly £2 million in bonuses last year alone.
     In that year, the division was described as "not fit for purpose" by John Reid, then Home Secretary, after a series of blunders including the failure to deport hundreds of foreign prisoners held in UK jails.
     Flawed data from the IND, now the Border and Immigration Agency, were blamed for the Government omitting 300,000 foreign-born workers from immigration figures given to Parliament last month. ...
     In 2005-06, IND staff were paid £1,951,276 on top of their salaries. The previous year, the total was £1,967,989. In 2003-04, it was £1,650,451. And in 2002-03, officials got £1,334,164. ...
     The figures were released in response to Parliamentary questions from Danny Alexander, the Liberal Democrat spokesman on work and pensions, who said the situation "defies common sense".

Benefits and costs – public opinion
Restrictions call
Daily Telegraph, 12 November 2007

     Eighty-one per cent of the public believe immigration in Britain should be cut substantially, according to a poll today, while 54 per cent dispute the Government's assertion that those coming into the country have helped the economy.
     The research, carried out by YouGov for pressure group Migrationwatch, found 85 per cent of people thought that immigration was putting too much pressure on public services.

Benefits and costs – housing
Inquiry launched into migrant council housing
Robert Winnett
Daily Telegraph, 2 November 2007

     A major independent inquiry to determine whether immigrants are given unfair access to council housing was announced yesterday by Britain's race watchdog and local authority leaders.
     Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said there was a "widespread public perception" that new migrants had "unfair advantages to which they are not entitled".
     He announced that his commission and the Local Government Association (LGA) would launch a study to determine whether the perception was correct, and would stop any abuse it uncovered. ...
     A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Trevor Phillips said ... he has never seen 'any reliable evidence' to back up claims that councils are unfairly allocating housing. While local government has always maintained they have operated allocations fairly, we agree it is important to deal with perception."

Benefits and costs
Migrants may push up council tax
Toby Helm
Daily Telegraph, 1 November 2007

     Millions of homeowners face higher council tax bills next year because of the Government's failure to keep track of the number of immigrants in Britain, local authorities warned yesterday.
     Schools, hospitals and other services are struggling to cope with rapid and uncontrolled influxes of migrants, the Local Government Association (LGA) claimed. It says that because money allocated to local authorities is calculated by population figures, the government's inability to accurately assess migrant numbers means councils are receiving inadequate funding.
     A spokesman for the LGA said that in areas where numbers had risen but statistics had not reflected the increase, councils would have two options: to put up council tax next year, or cut services.

Benefits and costs
No jobs for 4,000 UK junior doctors
Rebecca Smith
Daily Telegraph, 1 November 2007

     Almost 4,000 UK medics have not got training posts in the disastrous junior doctors recruitment system, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
     A second round of recruitment ended yesterday and of the 13,624 UK graduates, who cost the taxpayer £250,000 each to put through medical school, 3,687 have not been awarded posts to allow them to train towards becoming a consultant or GP.
     Some may yet be allocated a post in one of the less popular specialties such as trauma, orthopaedics or psychiatry, and an extra 1,050 short-term posts that have not yet been allocated. But most face a choice between taking a non-training job, leaving medicine or practising abroad. ...
     Officials have said that without the thousands of applicants from outside Europe, most of which were from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, there would not have been such oversubscription for training places.

Benefits and costs
We need an honest immigration debate
Bob Rowthorn, professor of economics at Cambridge University
Daily Telegraph website, 21 October 2007

     Immigration is a contentious topic. But there is widespread agreement in official circles to one proposition: immigrants contribute enormously to increasing the prosperity of the British people. The consensus that immigration has economically beneficial effects was on display last week, when the Government released a report by its own experts. "Migrants contribute £6 billion to the GDP" was the headline in many newspapers. And the report indeed confirmed the orthodoxy that "the Exchequer is better off with immigration than without it" - as Liam Byrne, the Home Office Minister, has insisted.
     Such claims are profoundly misleading. What matters to the existing population is not how migration affects the "economy" as a whole, but how it affects them individually. Migration may increase the size of the national cake, but it also increases the number of people who are entitled to a slice of this cake.
     There is a whole section of the report devoted to the contribution of migrants to GDP per capita. It claims that, since 1998, immigrants have added 3.1 per cent to Britain's GDP. That is true. But there is another, critical fact: during the same period, immigrants have added 3.8 per cent to the total British population. Put those two together and you get the result that the additional amount produced by immigrants has been smaller than the number of people they have added to the population.
     The conclusion is inescapable: the result of immigration since 1998 has been to lower per capita GDP, or output per individual worker, not to increase it. The effect is very small, and within the margin of statistical error. But if you are willing to rely on the figures, the one thing you cannot conclude is that immigration has increased per capita GDP.
     Yet this is precisely what is often meant by those who insist that "immigration has been enormously beneficial to the economy". Putting the GDP and population figures together is not complicated economics. But somehow the report never manages to do it, and so never manages to reach the obvious conclusion. I don't know whether that failure is deliberate or not - but it is certainly misleading. ...
     Immigration, if it continues at the present rate of a net inflow of around 200,000 people a year, is going to add around 20 million to Britain's population over the next 50 years. Official press releases from the Office of National Statistics do not accurately report that fact, because they do not take account of the children that immigrants will have. It is not easy to see how the South East - which is where most immigrants settle, because that is where the jobs are - will be able to cope with so large an additional population. ...
     But let's have an honest debate about the effects and consequences of immigration, not one based on misleading statistics or evasion of the truth. At the moment, the Government seems to want to conduct the discussion on the basis that it is better that people should not know what the truth is. I cannot believe that ignorance is a rational or ethical basis for making a decision on so important a topic. If we do not debate the effects of immigration honestly and truthfully, we will all come to regret it.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
Migrant workers earn more than British
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 17 October 2007

     Immigrant workers are both higher paid and more reliable than their British counterparts and contributed £6 billion to economic growth last year, a Government study said yesterday.
     Migrants earn £424 a week on average, compared with £395 for UK workers, and paid more in tax than they consumed in services.
     However, a separate paper issued together with the study by the Home Office admitted there were complaints about the impact of immigration on housing and other public services. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said the research showed that "in the long run, our country and Exchequer are better off with immigration rather than without it".
     The report found that in 2006, record immigration pushed the number of foreign workers up to 12.5 per cent - or one eighth - of the labour force, compared to 7.4 per cent a decade ago.
     Since average output growth over this period was 2.7 per cent a year and migration contributed an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of this, the study estimated a contribution of £6 billion from foreign workers - or £700,000 a day.
     However, the figure does not take account of the costs of a growing population, for instance the impact on public services such as health, education and transport. But the overwhelmingly positive findings were last night challenged by academics.
     Robert Rowthorn, an emeritus professor at Cambridge University, warned that as well as putting pressure on services, large-scale migration would "undermine the labour market position of the most vulnerable sections of the local workforce". The study, the first official attempt to establish the economic and fiscal impact of the record levels of immigration seen in recent years, states that "in the long run, it is likely that the net fiscal contribution of an immigrant will be greater than that of a non-immigrant".
     It also claims there is no evidence of foreign workers pushing British people out of jobs, although it presents no firm evidence for this.

Benefits and costs – housing
Public 'link immigrants to soaring house prices'
Andrew Porter
Daily Telegraph, 8 October 2007

     Immigrants are being blamed for driving up house prices, according to a new survey.
     The Conservatives immediately seized on the evidence to push their policy of putting annual limits on immigration. One in five people said controls on the number of foreigners coming to Britain was the best way to slowing demand and halting soaring property prices, the survey for propertyfinder.com found.
     ... New arrivals from abroad came second only to property investors as being responsible for fuelling the market.

Benefits and costs
Migrants 'reliant' on benefits
Duncan Gardham
Daily Telegraph, 1 October 2007

     The degree to which new immigrants rely on benefits and council housing has been revealed by a survey that looks at how much foreigners contribute to the economy.
     The league tables have been compiled by the Left-leaning Institute for Public Policy Research on behalf of Dispatches, to be shown on Channel 4 tonight. The figures come from the census and the quarterly Labour Force Survey.
     Somalians rely heavily on benefits, according to the statistics - 80 per cent live in social housing and 39 per cent claim income support.
     Nearly half of newly-arrived Turks - 49 per cent - rely on social housing and 39 per cent claim income support. However, 35 per cent are self-employed.
     Other nationalities rely on sickness benefit - 10 per cent of those newly arrived from Pakistan claim it, along with nine per cent from Cyprus, and eight per cent from Kenya, Ireland and Jamaica.
     Poles work longer hours for less pay and are paid less sickness benefit than almost any other group.
     Nigerians are among the best educated, most likely to be working in the public sector and least likely to claim sickness benefit.
     British-born workers score below average in most of the tables - they claim more sickness benefit and council housing and work shorter hours.

Benefits and costs
Migrants are a drain on Britain, says Left think-tank
Ben Leapman
Sunday Telegraph, 30 September 2007

     Hundreds of thousands of immigrants are a drain on Britain and its economy, says a Left-leaning think-tank.
     Migrants from many developing nations fail to pay their way, while those from wealthy countries, such as the United States and Australia, provide a boost for the economy.
     The report, published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), sets out to reveal which nationalities are "a debit on Britain's balance sheet".
     It found that fewer than half of Britain's 650,000 Somalis, Bangladeshis, Turks and Pakistanis, have jobs and the four communities have the highest levels of benefit dependency.
     Britain's fastest-growing migrant group, the Poles, score above-average for employment, but have the lowest hourly pay and make a below-average tax contribution.
     Channel 4 commissioned the report for a Dispatches documentary, Immigrants: the Inconvenient Truth, to be shown tomorrow night.

Benefits and costs
Immigrants 'fuel rise in crashes'
Daily Telegraph, 25 September 2007

     Immigrants motorists' attitudes to drink-driving and speeding is fuelling a surge in road crashes, a police chief warned yesterday.
     Eastern European drivers struggling to understand signs is also thought to be a factor in the number of accidents.
     Chief Insp Rick Dowell, the head of Dorset Police's traffic unit, said there had been an increase in the number of foreign nationals arrested for drink-driving and speeding.
     "The number of fatal or serious injury collisions involving foreign nationals is also increasing," he said.

Benefits and costs – public services
Migrants 'should pay for our services'
Bonnie Malkin
Daily Telegraph, 24 September 2007

     Economic migrants could be forced to make a bigger contribution to the cost of public services, under plans outlined by the head of Britain's new equality watchdog.
     Trevor Phillips, who launches the Commission for Equality and Human Rights this week, said that some migrants who stay in the UK only for a short time should pay more for the use of schools and hospitals.
     He said the current immigration system was not built to deal with "shuttle migrants", described as people who "virtually commute from Warsaw or Slovenia", and recommended a "two-track immigration system" instead.
     He said: "It's not that we don't want them to come here. But they put a stress on infrastructure.
     "You might say they are people who are basically here for work ... they and their employers might have to make a contribution, for social insurance for example." ...
     Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, said yesterday that the suggestions would be taken seriously.

Benefits and costs – multiculturalism
Police face growing bill for interpreters
Aislinn Simpson and Alison Stacey
Daily Telegraph, 21 September 2007

     Police forces are spending millions of pounds on interpreters to meet the demands posed by immigrant workers. ...
     ... Thames Valley Police - which covers Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire - said it was spending £1 million a year on interpreters. Ten years ago the bill was about £80,000. ...
     In London, the Metropolitan Police spent £9.9 million on interpreters last year - up almost £3 million in the past three years.

Benefits and costs – employment
One in four Britons is out of work
Graeme Wilson
Daily Telegraph, 16 August 2007

     Nearly 10 million adults in Britain are currently out of work, one in four of the working population, the Government admitted yesterday.
     Official figures showed there are 1.65 million people who are unemployed, with a further 7.9 million defined as "economically inactive".
     The latter group includes more than two million people who are on long-term sickness benefits as well as students, people who have taken time off work to look after their family and those who have taken early retirement. ...
     The scale of the figures overshadowed the fact that the official unemployment figure had dropped by 45,000 over the past three months to 1.65 million, the lowest figure for more than a year.
     At the same time, the number of people in work rose by 93,000 to 29.07 million, the second highest figure on record.

Benefits and costs – housing
Immigrants given 4 in 10 new homes
Tom Savage
Daily Star, 16 August 2007

     Immigrants have taken 40% of all homes built in the UK in the past 10 years.
     The number of properties available for Brits has been squeezed because of the record number of foreigners coming to live here, according to official figures released yesterday.
     Nearly 600,000 properties have been needed to house immigrants since 1997 - three times the amount required under the last Tory Government. On average, 19,000 new homes were needed for migrants each year from 1992 to 1997.
     But after Labour came to power, that figure rocketed to an average of 66,000 each year from 1997 to 2005 - the latest year figures are available for - making a total of 592,000 homes.
     And experts say the figure is likely to have continued rising due to East European immigration since 2005.
     Tory MP James Clappison, who requested the figures, said the extra homes also damage the countryside. ...
     The Brown Government plans to build 3 million new houses in the UK by 2020, many tailored for firsttime buyers.
     But projected levels of immigration suggest that 1.2m - or 40% - will be needed for migrants, though the Government claims the figure is 33%.
[Site link]

Benefits and costs
Counting the cost of immigration
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2007

     Immigration is, then, a numbers issue after all. Even the BBC now agrees. Last week, after studiously ignoring the subject for years, or finding it somewhat distasteful, the Beeb screened a Panorama programme entitled "How We Lost Count", which it advertised as though this were some sort of scoop.
     These are facts that many of us have known for years, but it has been an uphill battle to get them seriously debated. The fact that they are now being discussed is largely due to the efforts of a small, independent research outfit called Migrationwatch, which came on to the scene exactly five years ago this week. It issued a report that was denounced as alarmist, scaremongering, even racist.
     It was a prediction that Britain could expect to receive more than two million immigrants every 10 years for the foreseeable future unless curbs were introduced. It was absolutely spot on, but few thanked Sir Andrew Green, the retired diplomat who founded Migrationwatch, for pointing it out. More than that, efforts were made - including official ones - to traduce his motives and to trash his group's research.
     You may or may not agree with Sir Andrew's view, which he articulated five years ago, that "the scale of inward migration is now so great as to be contrary to the best interests of every section of our community". But you can no longer ignore that scale nor its consequences. The big question now is what do we do about it?
     In a recent parliamentary debate, important speeches on this subject were made by Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP for mid-Sussex, and Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead. Mr Soames proposed moving to zero net immigration from outside the EU; Mr Field, if anything, was more radical in his prescription. He also said: "The debate is of course about numbers, but it is also about what it means to create and maintain a community. If the Government do not change track very smartly on this issue, the sense of national identity might be lost, and then we are in totally new territory."

Benefits and costs – employment
Rural migrant workers 'drive out young'
Graham Tibbetts
Daily Telegraph, 17 July 2007

     Migrant workers from Eastern Europe are flooding the rural labour market and forcing young people to leave the countryside in search of work, a Government advisory body warns today.
     The number of migrants working in the countryside has increased by 200 per cent in three years, with many seeking employment in agriculture, manufacturing, hotels and retail, according to a major report by the Commission for Rural Communities. This comes amid a long-term decline in the number of young people living in rural areas. ...
     The report, entitled State of the Countryside 2007, found much to commend country life over urban life including full employment, less pollution, better diet and fewer cases of stress and mental illness.
     But the researchers raised concerns that the influx of foreign workers, following the accession of eight former Soviet-bloc countries to the European Union, was placing a great strain on local schools and transport and posing problems for young country people.
     About 120,000 migrant workers registered to work in rural areas between May 2004 and Sept 2006. ...
     The commission said the money the Government gave town halls for supporting immigrants was based on statistics that were several years out of date.

Benefits and costs – education
Britain's universities 'could lose world position within 10 years'
Caroline Davies
Daily Telegraph, 5 July 2007

     Britain's reputation as a world leader for university education could be lost within 10 years, the vice-chancellor of Cambridge warned yesterday.
     Standards will plummet unless universities resist the temptation to take on poor-quality students in an attempt to plug funding gaps, Professor Alison Richard told MPs. ...
     Prof Richard told the education select committee that standards could be seriously compromised by the Government's drive to increase student numbers.
     In particular, the trend to recruit foreign students for their higher fees could lead to "a downward spiral", she said.

Benefits and costs – housing
200,000 'social homes' were given to immigrants last year
Gary Cleland
Daily Telegraph, 2 July 2007

     Five times more immigrants are given social housing than previously claimed, the Government has admitted.
     Just weeks ago ministers insisted that only one per cent of social housing is given to immigrants, in an attempt to quell widespread fears that they are treated better by local authorities than people born in Britain.
     But after an investigation by ITV's Tonight with Trevor McDonald programme, the Government has admitted that 200,000 of Britain's social homes - five per cent of the total - were given to immigrants last year.
     There is a waiting list of 1.5 million for the four million social houses in Britain.

Benefits and costs
Shortage of £50 notes blamed on immigrants
Daily Telegraph, 29 June 2007

     The Bank of England has revealed that a shortage of £50 notes is the result of so many eastern European immigrants sending them back home.
     Poles in Britain sent home almost £1 billion in the first three months of this year. Polish officials say two thirds of the Poles who have left the country are working in Britain and more than three quarters of the money flooding back to boost the Polish economy has been sent from this country.

Benefits and costs – housing
Open borders demand open debate
Sunday Telegraph, 27 May 2007
[Leading article]

     Margaret Hodge, the Minister of Industry and the Regions, and MP for Barking in London, was therefore doing little more than stating the obvious when she noted that the basis on which the state allocates the scarce resource of council housing "needs to be transparent and it needs to be perceived as fair". She also said that it was not perceived as fair, particularly since there was a widespread perception that a recently-arrived family with children would get priority over people who had lived and paid taxes for most of the lives in Britain. Such a perception exists, as the polls show: around 70 per cent believe that long-term tax-paying Britons should have priority over just-arrived immigrants in the queue for social housing.
     Yet the reaction of Margaret Hodge's Labour colleagues to her statement was hysterical. She was accused of "allowing the BNP to dictate Labour Party policies", of advocating changes which would have "catastrophic consequences for community relations", and advocating "discriminatory" housing policies. The tactic is only too familiar, because it is what Labour has done whenever any issue relating to immigration has come up for discussion: it has tried to close down debate by suggesting that even to talk about the topic is to be "racist" and to have views indistinguishable from the BNP. ...
     Myths and outright falsehoods are quickly accepted as true when public discussion is suppressed. For instance: it is not generally true that immigrant families are given automatic preference over native-born Britons when it comes to allocating housing. But the refusal of the Government to allow an open and honest discussion of the subject means that many Britons waiting for council houses believe it. ...
     We badly need and honest and open public debate about the costs and benefits of immigration to Britain, and on the extent and limits of our obligations to poor or destitute people who arrive in Britain in search of a better life. ...
     There was not a word on the topic in any of Labour's election manifestos. Conservative attempts to put the issue on the agenda have been smeared and denigrated in exactly the same way as Margaret Hodge was last week.

Benefits and costs – housing
Lady Hodge's days must be numbered
Simon Heffer
Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2007

     It is hard to believe that one person who will not be sacked - and for whom it would be hard to find as appalling a replacement - will be the industry minister, Margaret Hodge. Mrs Hodge - or Lady Hodge, as she should more correctly be known, her husband being a knight - came out this week with the amazing statement that our indigenous population should be given preferential treatment in housing allocations to recent immigrants. I happen to agree with her, but it is only because the BNP threatens to unseat her in her constituency because of this issue that she has come out so cynically in favour of the policy. I won't ask what took her so long, just why even now she is still allowed to hold office.

Benefits and costs – housing
Johnson accuses Hodge of using 'language of BNP'
Brendan Carlin
Daily Telegraph, 25 May 2007

     Labour's immigration row deepened last night after the Education Secretary, Alan Johnson, accused a fellow minister of language worthy of the British National Party.
     Mr Johnson, one of the frontrunners to be Labour's deputy leader, condemned the industry minister, Margaret Hodge, for claiming that existing British families should have more right than immigrants to social housing.
     Speaking on BBC's Question Time, Mr Johnson said: "The problem with that is that's the kind of language of the BNP.
     "And it's grist to the mill of the BNP, particularly as there is no evidence that there's any problem in social housing - none whatsoever." ...
     Earlier this week, Mrs Hodge was rebuked by two other contenders for the deputy leadership - Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, and backbencher Jon Cruddas. ...
     However, Mrs Hodge, who was born in Egypt, won some support from Hazel Blears, Labour's party chairman and also a deputy leadership candidate. She said that "you have got to look at allocations policies to show that they are fair".

Benefits and costs – housing
Shame on you, Margaret Hodge
Andrew O'Hagan
Daily Telegraph, 22 May 2007

     Are modern politicians generally more disgusting than they used to be? I feel it is worth pondering the question as you go about trying to understand the latest statement by Margaret Hodge on the question of immigrants and public housing. ...
     It was nauseatingly worded, in an article for the Observer, so as to seem fair to all parties, but nobody is fooled: Mrs Hodge wants to stop foreigners from taking our houses.
     She hasn't the courage to present the matter so frankly, but this is what she means, and her idea is completely divisive. ...
     Why do you think she did it? I'll give you three clues. One: she represents Barking. Two: her constituency used to be very white and now it's very mixed. And three: the BNP gained 11 seats on the local council last year. So there you have it, the simple moral arithmetic of modern British politics. Mrs Hodge is wooing those of her constituents who have lately found their concerns being represented most nakedly by the British National Party, and their sitting MP is keen enough to see that she'd better say something to appease their growing anger.
     Shame on her. And shame on them. The notion that immigrants are hoisted on to the housing lists at the expense of true blue working-class English folk is a complete fallacy. It's more than a fallacy: it's a stupid, jingoistic fallacy, propagated by people who have their own reasons for feeling aggrieved at their lot in life.

Benefits and costs – housing
A message to my fellow immigrants
Margaret Hodge, Industry Minister
The Observer, 20 May 2007

     In our open, tolerant country, there are, thankfully, few issues that remain taboo. But, motivated by the fear of both legitimising racism and encouraging the extreme right, migration is one. Yet for many voters, it continues to be a top issue.
     My constituency of Barking in east London has experienced rapid change, moving from predominantly white neighbourhoods to many multiracial neighbourhoods. ... ...
     Unless we listen, we shall be unable to convince people that we are on their side as they learn to live with new neighbours in the tolerant and strong multiracial society we on the liberal left desire. This stifled debate means we have missed the opportunity to articulate more clearly the huge benefits to our economy, our culture and the evolving nature of our Britishness that migration brings. ...
     We need just immigration policies that are fairly and efficiently administered. But we also need to acknowledge that population change is a feature of the modern world, of our globalisation. Yet the period of transition can be disturbing and painful. We all find change difficult and new neighbours, new shops and new habits in our street or on our estate do demand adjustment. As ever, the people who face the greatest changes tend to be those who live in the poorest communities where migrants can afford to settle.
     So while we need strong leadership to promote the rewards migration offers, it is only fair to hear the resentments and fears it can arouse. Only by listening to those fears can we demonstrate understanding for the difficulties settled communities experience in adjusting and move beyond the fears to secure tolerance and harmony. ...
     We prioritise the needs of an individual migrant family over the entitlement others feel they have. So a recently arrived family with four or five children living in a damp and overcrowded, privately rented flat with the children suffering from asthma will usually get priority over a family with less housing need who have lived in the area for three generations and are stuck at home with the grandparents.
     We should look at policies where the legitimate sense of entitlement felt by the indigenous family overrides the legitimate need demonstrated by the new migrants.
     We should also look at drawing up different rules based on, for instance, length of residence, citizenship or national insurance contributions which carry more weight in a transparent points system used to decide who is entitled to access social housing. There are a small number of confirmed refugees who, of course, would receive the same entitlements as British citizens. However, most new migrant families are economic migrants who choose to come to live and work here. If you choose to come to Britain, should you presume the right to access social housing? ...
     As an immigrant myself, although I am white and middle class, I know how difficult it is to adapt in a new country. ... I know that striking the best balance in our approach to migration is fraught with huge difficulties. But if we don't dare to talk about it, we'll never get it right.

Benefits and costs – statistics
Whitehall immigration figures are too low, say councils
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 15 May 2007

     The Government was accused yesterday of exaggerating the economic benefits of immigration as council leaders complained that official data about migrant numbers were flawed.
     Liam Byrne, the Home Office minister, said immigrants were contributing half a billion pounds every working day to the economy, a figure later repeated by Downing Street.
     This would amount to £125 billion a year - equivalent to 10 per cent of total GDP.
     But critics said it did not take into account the fact that immigrants also added to the population, which meant that on a per head basis the addition was negligible.
     Mr Byrne was responding to criticism from town hall bosses that official statistics underestimated the number of migrants in their areas.
     This affects the grants they receive from Whitehall, which are based on population numbers. ...
     Councils receive around £600 for every person in the borough from central government. ...
     Sir Simon Milton, the leader of Westminster City Council, said 2,000 migrants were coming through Victorian coach station every week.

Benefits and costs – assessment
Forum to assess impact of record immigration
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 29 March 2007

     Ministers are to set up a forum to assess the impact of immigration on communities, the Home Office announced yesterday.
     The new body, which follows 10 years of record immigration under Labour, will consider evidence that schools, hospitals, housing and transport infrastructure are all feeling the strain of a growing population. ...
     The creation of the Migration Impacts Forum (MIF), alongside another body advising on skills shortages that immigrants might be able to fill, marks a significant change of approach by Labour, which has justified the four-fold increase in immigration since 1997 almost entirely on economic grounds. ...
     Yesterday's announcement was part of a package of measures that included the prospect of a £1,000 fine on families whose relatives failed to go home when their visas expired. It is already an offence punishable by a £5,000 fine to retain a nanny who has overstayed.
     It also envisaged further curbs on forced marriage by raising the minimum age for bringing a spouse into the country from 18 to 21. It will be a requirement for spouses to learn English before they can join they wife or husband. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "It is high time that the wider picture was considered, including the widespread public concern that we are losing our own culture.
     "But this forum will be useless if it includes only the usual suspects from the immigration industry and employers who stand to gain from immigration."

Benefits and costs – asylum
Taxpayers get bill for asylum seekers
Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2007

     Taxpayers will have to pick up the bill for looking after failed asylum seekers after a council lost a legal test case yesterday.
     Hillingdon borough in west London is adding £10 to its average tax bill to cover the cost because the Government refuses to provide the funds.
     The Tory-run council, which covers Heathrow, spends £1 million a year looking after people who arrive as unaccompanied children and remains legally responsible for them until they are 21.

Benefits and costs – jobs
'Learn English or lose benefits'
George Jones
Daily Telegraph, 13 February 2007

     Unemployed immigrants will have to show they are learning English or risk losing benefits from April, Jim Murphy, the welfare minister, announced yesterday.
     About 40,000 jobless people from ethnic minorities say their poor English is a barrier to finding employment - and £4.5m is spent on translators in job centres.
     The Government believes that this money would be better spent on teaching them English so they could get jobs rather than claim benefit. Mr Murphy told a Work Foundation seminar that it was "unacceptable" that ethnic minorities in Britain earned on average a third less than their white counterparts.
     While 15 per cent of members of ethnic minorities cited language difficulties as a barrier to work, not enough of the language-learning opportunities at job centres were being taken up.

Benefits and costs
Migrants 'add 4p a week' to your pocket
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2007

     The alleged economic benefit to Britain of record levels of immigration are a myth, new figures suggest.
     They show a "very slight" gain of around 4p a week for each member of the native population - not enough to buy a Mars bar a month.
     An analysis carried out by Migrationwatch UK used the Government's own claim that immigrants contribute a net £4 billion a year to Britain's gross domestic product.
     The study said this amounted to £2.10 a year for each of Britain's 60 million inhabitants.
     It concluded: "The much vaunted contribution of immigrants to the economy is very slight indeed." ...
     Migrationwatch examined a range of British and international studies on the economic value of mass immigration, all of which indicate that, on a per capita basis, the financial benefits are minimal.
     In addition, high levels of immigration place huge pressure on housing, health and schools and have an increasing impact on employment.

Benefits and costs
Little to show from tide of migrants
Sir Andrew Green
Daily Telegraph, 3 January 2007

     It is amazing what the Government's spin doctors have been getting away with. For years they have trumpeted the economic benefits of immigration but now we find that they are, in fact, very small.
     The Government recently put a figure on it for the first time. Ministers told Parliament that immigrants add "at least £4 billion to production". What they did not say is that they also add almost exactly the equivalent percentage to our population, so the extra wealth per head is barely positive. We calculate it is 4p per week per head. Another claim - that immigrants contribute 10-15 per cent of trend growth - gives a slightly better result of 12p a week. Both are trivial.
     We shouldn't be surprised. Major studies in America, Canada and Australia found similarly small benefit - typically a tenth of one per cent of GDP. ...
     But the key issue is scale. We need to balance any economic benefit against the social cost of immigration ...

Benefits and costs
£100m translation bill for migrants who can't or won't speak English
Amy Iggulden
Daily Telegraph, 14 December 2006

     Public spending on interpreters and translation for immigrants is to be reviewed after figures revealed the yearly bill is more than £100 million.
     Police forces, councils and hospitals are each spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on translating services that include recycling and anti-smoking advice, it emerged yesterday. ...
     The Government yesterday ordered a review after figures showed that NHS trusts spend at least £55 million a year on translating and interpretation, the courts and police spend £31.3 million and local authorities spend £25 million a year.
     The costs, obtained by the BBC, are likely to be an underestimate because not all public bodies are taken into account.
     The details show how the Metropolitan Police spends £8.4 million a year, Barts and the London NHS Trust spends £1 million a year, and the Department of Work and Pensions spends £3 million on a telephone interpreting service.
     Overall, the interpretation market for business and the public sector is thought to be worth about £400 million and growing to reflect the increasingly diverse population, according to the Institute of Translation and Interpreting.
     The increase in the courts service bill alone - now £10 million a year - has trebled over five years. ...
     Phil Woolas, the local government minister, admitted that the situation needed to be examined. He said that more than £1 billion is already being spent on teaching English.

Benefits and costs – multiculturalism
Winning Muslim hearts and minds
Michael Burleigh, a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford
Daily Telegraph, 30 November 2006

     We are entitled to have accurate information about immigration, with open discussion of its cultural, as well as economic, merits and demerits. Clear lines need to be established about what the majority of people here are prepared to tolerate, for toleration is not some open-ended, one-way arrangement. It's all very well to say you are against the formation of inner-city ghettos potentially subtracted from common law, but how, precisely, do Conservatives imagine dispersing them or preventing their formation?

Benefits and costs
'Feckless' Poles aim for Britain
Daily Telegraph, 8 November 2006

     "Feckless" Poles have turned Britain into their number one destination, the Polish president declared yesterday during a press conference with Tony Blair in Number 10.
     Lech Kaczynski said Britain had become the "destination of choice" for homeless and jobless Poles and complained that many of his countrymen were still claiming benefits in Poland despite holding down jobs in Britain.

Benefits and costs – drug addicts
Doctor's diary
Dr James Lefanu
Daily Telegraph, 20 October 2006

     Back in the mid-1990s, ...
     At the same time, when sentencing an Italian drug addict convicted of theft, a judge remarked how those coming before the bench were frequently from other countries in the European Union who appeared to have moved to Britain to take advantage of the generous attitude of the welfare system to those in their situation. A decade on, it's hard to imagine anything more in need of reform.

Benefits and costs
Why is the white working class so roundly despised?
Andrew Gimson
Daily Telegraph, 13 October 2006

     The Government has encouraged mass migration, a change of which I happen to be in favour, for I believe these newcomers are an asset to our country and will rapidly become British. But no heed has been paid to those members of the indigenous working class who have found their wages undercut by cheap foreign competition, and have difficulty getting council housing.

Benefits and costs – education
Months after they turned children away, 'full' schools open to migrants
Julie Henry
Sunday Telegraph, 8 October 2006

     Schools that are officially full have been forced to find places for eastern European children who turn up at their gates after term has started.
     Secondary schools across the east of England have suspended admission rules that dictate how many children they can accommodate each year, in order to take dozens more pupils, mostly from the EU accession states of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania.

Benefits and costs
Life in Britain 'declining'
Laura Clout
Daily Telegraph, 4 September 2006

     Britain is a worse place to live now than it was 20 years ago, according to almost half of respondents to a nationwide poll.
     Lack of respect and crime were given as the main reasons for the decline by the 47 per cent who felt that British life had deteriorated since 1986. Less than a quarter believed that it had improved.
     Almost half of those who felt the country had gone downhill cited a lack of respect and crime, while 31 per cent mentioned the cost of living. Terrorism and immigration were each blamed by 28 per cent of respondents to the poll, conducted for BBC1's Six O'Clock News.

Benefits and costs
Immigrants 'should be set £27,000 wage target'
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 29 August 2006

     Immigrants unable to earn more than £27,000 a year should not be allowed to settle in Britain because they do not make "a positive contribution", a report says today.
     The Migrationwatch think-tank suggests that the figure could be used to set an optimum level of immigration along the lines recently suggested by John Reid, the Home Secretary. ...
     The report says that immigration is of long-term benefit to the economy only if it raises productivity. Otherwise, it simply adds to the pressure on infrastructure and public services.
     The paper adds that less skilled migrants can make a contribution by filling gaps while British workers are trained but should not be allowed to settle permanently. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "The social costs of the present massive levels of immigration far outweigh any possible benefit."

Benefits and costs
The cry has gone up 'Enoch was right'. Tosh. Immigration is good for Britain
Magnus Linklater
The Times, 23 August 2006

     "If Enoch Powell were alive today, what would he have to say about the current security situation?" It was a typical Any Questions debating point - the equivalent of rolling a grenade into a crowded pub, then standing back to see what would happen. Within minutes, the discussion on Radio 4 had become a full-scale argument about Islamic terrorism, multiculturalism, free trade and Polish plumbers. From this week, it is also about Romanians and Bulgarians, rampant Aids and the white slave traffic. The debate about immigration is as inflammatory today as it was when Powell articulated it in 1968. It is also as dangerously confused.
     The answer Powell himself would undoubtedly have given is: "I told you so." He would have claimed prescience about the numbers flooding into Britain from abroad, he would say that multiculturalism (which he referred to it in those days as "communalism") had demonstrably failed, and he would have argued that the growth of immigrant communities had undermined the security of the State. He said as much in his infamous "rivers of blood" speech, when he spoke of "dangerous and divisive elements" within the immigrant community, who would use Britain's well-intentioned race relations laws "to organise and consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow-citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest".
     It was a blatantly racist speech, playing to the most basic fears of the white population at the time about the growth of immigration from the Commonwealth. It was also wrong. Powell presumed that the majority of immigrants would become increasingly alienated from society and that, as their numbers increased, they would seek to assert their domination over the native British. He thought that the sheer weight of numbers would simply overwhelm white communities, who would become, to quote him, "strangers in their own country". He predicted intolerable tensions as a result, with a system of "one-way privilege" operating in favour of immigrants. That has not happened. There have been flashpoints along the way - race riots in Brixton, Bristol and the North of England, racist attacks and murders, and the worrying alienation of Muslim minorities. But the breakdown that he predicted has not happened; Powell's nightmare vision has not materialised.
     It has not, however, gone away. In different forms, it is summoned up to warn us of the threat from Islamic extremists, from asylum-seekers, and now the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe. ... ...
     As so often, there is a grain of truth in some of these arguments - but collectively, they amount to a lie. Immigration has, by and large, been of enormous benefit to Britain. It has helped to transform our economy, enrich our cultural life, support our public services and improve our image abroad. It would be inconceivable to imagine our health or transport systems functioning without it. It fills a skills gap among doctors and teachers. It allows the nation's corner shops to survive. Toynbee's argument about cheap labour could have been deployed at any time over the past 50 years, and would have prevented buses and trains from functioning, hospitals being cleaned, schools being staffed and maintained.
     I have no doubt that mass immigration needs to be controlled, but rather than new restrictions the current rules should be managed more effectively and with greater humanity. This is too important an issue to be hijacked by prejudice disguising itself as rational debate. Unless we distinguish carefully between its differing strands, we might just as well give in to racism and say that Enoch was right all along.

Benefits and costs
Keith Vaz MP (Lab), Chair, Labour Party Ethnic Minority Taskforce
Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2006
[Letter to the Editor]

     It is ... regrettable that some commentators have already jumped to the conclusion that immigration acts as a drain on the national exchequer.
     As a recent report by the Ernst & Young Item Club concluded, immigration from other EU countries has helped to keep inflation under control, boost economic output and in fact raised tax revenue by £300 million in 2006.

Benefits and costs
Legal aid for asylum seekers tops £1bn
Jonathan Wynne-Jones
Sunday Telegraph, 6 August 2006

     More than a billion pounds of taxpayers' money has been spent on legal aid in immigration and asylum cases in the past decade, according to Government figures.
     In that period, the amount provided by the Department for Constitutional Affairs for the cases has nearly quadrupled - from £29 million in 1996-7 to £107.3 million in 2005-6.

Benefits and costs – population
Blair admits he has no policy on population
George Jones
Daily Telegraph, 5 July 2006

     The Government has no policy for controlling the size of Britain's population, Tony Blair admitted yesterday. ...
     Tony Wright, the Labour MP for Cannock Chase, told Mr Blair that Britain's population had topped 60 million for the first time last year and was expected to rise 12 per cent over the next generation. The rises were equivalent to having a new Oxford, a new Middlesbrough and a new Ipswich every year, and migration was the main driver of the rise. ...
     Mr Wright urged Mr Blair to set up a commission to give a cost and benefit analysis about different levels of population. ...
     Asked if the Government had a population policy, Mr Blair replied: "No, but we do have a migration policy obviously."
     He agreed with an MP's suggestion that the issue was "political dynamite". He said it was difficult to give objective facts on the benefits and "disbenefits" of migration.
     Migration on the whole was positive and with benefit to countries but it needed to be controlled. Asked if thousands of people could be deported, even if they had been in Britain for several years, he said there was "no easy way" of dealing with the issue.
     But allowing all illegal migrants to stay would encourage many more to come, he said. ...
     Gwyneth Dunwoody, the Labour MP for Crewe and Nantwich, told Mr Blair that a large influx of migrants from the new EU states was putting schools and housing under strain in some areas.

Benefits and costs
Never have we seen immigration on this scale: we just can't cope
Robert Rowthorn, professor of economics at King's College, Cambridge
Sunday Telegraph, 2 July 2006

     As an academic economist, I have examined many serious studies that have analysed the economic effects of immigration. There is no evidence from any of them that large-scale immigration generates large-scale economic benefits for the existing population as a whole. On the contrary, all the research suggests that the benefits are either close to zero, or negative.
     Immigration can't solve the pensions crisis, nor solve the problem of an ageing population, as its advocates so often claim. It can, at most, delay the day of reckoning, because, of course, immigrants themselves grow old, and they need pensions. The injection of large numbers of unskilled workers into the economy does not benefit the bulk of the population to any great extent. It benefits the nanny- and house-cleaner-using classes; it benefits employers who want to pay low wages; but it does not benefit indigenous, unskilled Britons, who have to compete with immigrants willing to work hard for very low wages in unpleasant working conditions.
     For low-skilled Britons, the result is that there are only two options: very low pay or unemployment. ...
     It is bizarre that the Labour Party, which still continues to insist that it is the party of the poor and vulnerable, should endorse a policy the purpose of which is the creation of what Marx called "a reserve army of labour": a pool of workers whose presence ensures that rates of pay for cleaners and ancillary staff in the NHS can be kept as low as possible. ...
     Unskilled migrants and their families often are net consumers of taxes: their children are educated in state schools, they are looked after when they have medical problems by the NHS, and they are eligible for state benefits if they are unable to find work. The new arrivals place a significant strain on the housing stock and delivery of public services in the neighbourhoods where new immigrants live: schools, hospitals and GP surgeries become more crowded, and state-subsidised housing gets more difficult to obtain. ...
     At the present rate of 223,000 additional immigrants every year, though, and adding the children that they will produce, the population of Britain will grow by more than 12 million to reach 73.2 million by 2046. There is no parallel for such a huge influx over a mere 40 years in our recorded history.
     Most of the immigrants will settle in London and the South-East, because that is where the jobs are. There is already a chronic housing shortage in that part of England, a large portion of which is due to immigration. ... Exacerbating the housing shortage and increasing the amount and density of built-on land, however, is only one of a series of transformations that will be triggered by the constant arrival of immigrants. They will inevitably completely change the culture and complexion of many cities.
     I am not suggesting that all those changes will be bad, because I am sure that not all of them will be. While the immigration lobby tries to smear anyone who questions the benefits of large-scale immigration as "racist", the real issue is not whether you like or dislike the social changes that the colossal influx of immigrants will bring. It is rather that the Government has embarked on a policy that will totally change the nature of many of the communities in which we live without consulting any of us.
     ... There was nothing about increasing immigration in Labour's manifesto of 1997, or of 2001, or of 2005.
     ... We desperately need an honest debate on the issue. But if the Government's record is anything to go by, it will do everything it can to prevent one.

Benefits and costs
Ten million immigrants 'could help crisis'
Edmund Conway
Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2006

     The pensions crisis could be solved by allowing an extra 10 million migrants into the UK in the next 20 years, leading economists have suggested.
     Experts from the Royal Economic Society said that the population in the UK was ageing so fast that the workforce - as it currently stands - would not be able to afford to pay the pensions bill for their elders.
     Professors David Blake and Les Mayhew have produced a study which also concludes that the government should raise the pension age to 70, and must lift it beyond 65 sooner than it already plans. ...
     Prof Blake said: "From a wider perspective, all these things may need to occur - working longer, increases in migration and increases in contribution levels. ..."

Benefits and costs – multiculturalism
£700,000 bill for rural police interpreters
David Sapsted
Daily Telegraph, 16 June 2006

     A rural police force had to spend more than £700,000 last year employing interpreters to interview suspects, victims and witnesses.
     The money - the equivalent of a year's pay for 35 beat bobbies - was spent by the Cambridgeshire police in the year ending March 31.
     Not only are the Fens a magnet for migrant workers and Cambridge a centre for tourists, but Peterborough is a "cluster" area for immigrants coming into East Anglia.
     However, the police authority said yesterday that some of the people the police had to deal with were second or even third generation Britons who did not speak English.

Benefits and costs
Government 'has hidden £200m cost of migrants'
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 25 April 2006

     Immigrants are a net cost on the economy and not a benefit as the Government has claimed, a report says today.
     The study by Migrationwatch UK challenges official figures suggesting that immigrants annually contribute £2.5 billion more to the economy in taxes than they receive in benefits and state services.
     It accuses Whitehall of using "entirely false" methodology to back up its claims by failing to take full account of the children of immigrants. ...
     The report says the original research, widely and regularly quoted by ministers, chose the only assumption that could deliver the "positive" result they were seeking. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "Our research completely demolishes the Government's last remaining excuse for the highest levels of immigration in our history by exposing a serious error in their methodology. The Government has used this statistic on every possible occasion but now it has been shown up as entirely worthless."
     The Home Office research paper, published in 2002, said that although immigrants cost £28.8 billion in welfare benefits and state services that year, they contributed £31.2 billion in taxes.

Benefits and costs
Of course the wealthy want an immigration free-for-all
Polly Toynbee
*The Guardian, 11 October 2005

     Here is a sign of how fast some Tories are on the move. Tory modernising MP John Bercow has written a pamphlet slashing and burning his party's election policy on asylum and immigration. Bercow is one of those who got his U-turn in early, his career a template for how far the modernisers in the party are travelling. Once a Thatcherite Tory boy of the far right, then on the move with Portillo, now he is where his party needs to be - not racist or Daily Mailist but pragmatic. ...
     Praise of immigration is the main thrust of Bercow's pamphlet. His argument for an open immigration policy is liberal in the free-market sense. A call for free movement of (cheaper) labour across the globe is, after all, the CBI's one and only "liberal" policy.
     Bercow, like Labour, says that in a global economy the UK needs migrants to fill jobs the British are "unable or unwilling to do". Migrant workers put in more than they take out, making a net contribution of £2.5bn. The Home Office says a 1% increase in immigration yields up to a 1.5% increase in GDP. Of the entire working population, 10% are now born abroad. The government agrees with Bercow and is setting up a new skills advisory body to let in migrants according to business demand.
     Bercow and Labour hotly assert that migrants don't take jobs from British workers nor depress wages. But there is no evidence for this assertion. It is impossible to know what level wages might be at or how many unemployed might have been tugged into jobs at higher pay rates had Britain kept its doors shut to new EU citizens until their countries had caught up economically.
     Blair and Brown embrace the inevitability of globalisation, but make a deliberately class-blind analysis. Migrants do bring GDP growth, but remember the Gate Gourmet workers fired to make way for cheaper newly arrived workers. Migrants add to the profits of the company and thus to GDP. They keep down the cost of flying for people wealthy enough to fly. They also hold down the pay rate for all other low-paid workers, keeping wage inflation remarkably low and the Bank of England very happy. ...
     Try this thought experiment: 43.5% of nurses recruited by the NHS since 1999 come from outside the UK. What if that were banned? The NHS in London would find clever ways to recruit from the city's mass of underqualified boys and girls, single mothers and other non-workers. Recruiters might set up special classes for 14-year-olds interested in nursing, promising work as nursing assistants while they trained, places to live in attractive nurses' homes, starter homes for key-worker families, status and good pay. The offer would be irresistible, and yes, taxes would be higher. ...
     [Incoming Assets: Why Tories should change policy on immigration and asylum, by John Bercow MP, is published by the Social Market Foundation.]

Benefits and costs
Taboo topic [1]
Thomas Sowell
The Social Contract, Fall 2005

     Immigration has joined the long list of subjects on which it is taboo to talk sense in plain English. At the heart of much confusion about immigration is the notion that we "need" immigrants - legal or illegal - to do work that Americans won't do.
     What we "need" depends on what it costs and what we are willing to pay. If I were a billionaire, I might "need" my own private jet. But I can remember a time when my family didn't even "need" electricity.
     Leaving prices out of the picture is probably the source of more fallacies in economics than any other single misconception. At current wages for low-level jobs and current levels of welfare, there are indeed many jobs that Americans will not take.
     The fact that immigrants - and especially illegal immigrants - will take those jobs is the very reason the wage levels will not rise enough to attract Americans.
     This is not rocket science. It is elementary supply and demand. Yet we continue to hear about the "need" for immigrants to do jobs that Americans will not do - even though these are all jobs that Americans have done for generations before mass illegal immigration became a way of life.

Benefits and costs
Taboo topic [2]
Thomas Sowell
The Social Contract, Fall 2005

     Europeans and Americans have for decades been playing Russian roulette with their loose immigration policies. The intelligentsia have told us that it would be wrong, and even racist, to set limits based on where the immigrants come from. ...
     In that rhetoric, all differences between peoples are magically transformed into mere "stereotypes" and "perceptions."
     This blithely ignores hard data showing, for example, that people who come here from some countries are ten times more likely to go on welfare as people from some other countries.
     The media and the intelligentsia love to say that most immigrants, from whatever group, are good people. But what "most" people from a given country are like is irrelevant.
     If 85 per cent of group A are fine people and 95 per cent of group B are fine people, that means you are going to be importing three times as many undesirables when you let in people from group A. ...
     In the current climate of political correctness it is taboo even to mention facts that go against the rosy picture of immigrants - for example, the fact that Russia and Nigeria are always listed among the most corrupt countries on earth, and that Russian and Nigerian immigrants in the United States have already established patterns of crime well known to law enforcement but kept from the public by the mainstream media.

Benefits and costs – myths
Large-scale immigration has prompted a flood of shoddy economic thinking
Ruth Lea
Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2004

     In November 2003, David Blunkett, defending the Government's immigration policy, asserted that "legal migrants brought economic benefits" and there was "no obvious limit" to the number of immigrants who could settle in the UK. In other words, the quite unprecedented large-scale immigration of a net 200,000 to 250,000 a year into Britain was not just perfectly acceptable, but there was no obvious reason why it should not be higher.
     ... ... ...
     Finally, I would like to dispel a couple of myths about immigration. The first is that large-scale immigration is necessary for buoyant economic growth. But this was most emphatically not the case in post-war Japan. The second is that the native-born British "will not do certain jobs". But they do these jobs in parts of the country where there are very few immigrants.
     Clearly, immigration does bring economic benefits but there are, equally clearly, costs as well. The Government should really be prepared to give us the whole picture.

BIAS

Bias – religion
Church leaders believe anti-Christian bias rife
Jonathan Wynne-Jones
Sunday Telegraph, 15 February 2009

     Almost two thirds of the Church of England General Synod believe Christians are the victims of discrimination in the workplace.
     A survey of members of the Church's parliament found that 63 per cent of them felt that Christians faced discrimination at work. ...
     While 59 per cent agreed that they had seen a decline in religious liberty over the past decade, 38 per cent of members disagreed. ...
     Church leaders have made impassioned pleas to Christians to stand up for their beliefs.
     ... However, Synod members were divided on whether Christianity should be exempt from equality legislation.
     While there are limited exemptions for religious employers under equality regulations, a significant number of respondents said that the Church should not be given the opportunity to opt out. ...
     The Sunday Telegraph survey was of 80 of the Synod's 484 members, including bishops, clergy and laity.

Bias – religion
Losing our religion
Olga Craig and Patrick Sawer
Sunday Telegraph, 15 February 2009

     And nowhere, according to councillor Alan Craig, of the Christian People's Alliance, is that wake-up call more vital than in the classrooms. "There is clearly growing discrimination against Christianity in our schools," he says. Teachers are being prevented from implementing policies that may be opposed by some Muslim parents by the fear of an Islamic backlash, believes Craig. ...
     In England and Wales, the law states that children at state schools "shall, on each school day, take part in an act of collective worship" which should be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character". In the light of the many instances of Nativity plays being banned and Christ's birth being celebrated at "Wintermass" rather than Christmas, Craig points out that it is difficult to remember that the Christian element of religious education is statutory. ...
     Government proposals aimed at giving increased legal rights to Muslims have left many wondering if the result will be a further clampdown on Christianity. The measures will force councils, schools, hospitals and other public bodies to treat members of all faiths equally. The result, says Simon Calvert, of the Christian Institute, could be a fresh onslaught of politically correct rulings. "We are worried that this will further squeeze out Christians," he says. "Christian groups already find it difficult to get funding from local councils." He fears that town hall bureaucrats could "over interpret and gold-plate" measures. "It will simply mean more of the politically correct rulings, such as banning Christmas celebrations and crucifixes from the work place."

Bias – free speech
Whatever happened to free speech?
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 13 February 2009

     The refusal to admit the oddball Dutch MP Geert Wilders to Britain yesterday marks a further retreat from this country's traditions of free speech. ... ...
     Yet what possible threat to public security is posed by a Dutch MP showing a film, in private, to a smattering of peers on a Thursday afternoon in February? Of itself, the film does not call for violence against Muslims; indeed, it suggests that Islam is a cause of violence, a view with which you are entitled to agree or feel strongly about, but not to prohibit.
     The reason for the ban appears to have been the possibility of protests by some Muslim organisations against Wilders's visit. In other words, his freedom to express a view and the liberty of peers to hear it in an institution supposedly devoted to free speech, were set aside in the face of intimidation – the opposite of what happened in the Rushdie case, even if that author was forced into hiding.
     What is particularly insidious is the application of double standards. One of those most opposed to Wilders's visit is the Muslim peer Lord Ahmed, though he denies allegations that he warned parliamentary authorities that 10,000 demonstrators would take to the streets. Yet two years ago, Lord Ahmed invited Mahmoud Abu Rideh, a Palestinian previously detained on suspicion of fundraising for groups linked to al-Qaeda, to Westminster to meet him. When he was criticised for doing so, he said it was his parliamentary duty to hear Rideh's complaints. He does not appear to see any contradiction with the position he now adopts against his fellow peers. ...
     ... Free speech is about understanding that some people hold a different view from you, whether you like it or not. When we start to alert the "authorities" to thought crimes we really are one step away from the dystopian world that Orwell invented as a warning, not a prophecy.
     The Government that has treated our liberties in such a cavalier way is having none of this, of course. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said the film made by Wilders was "full of hate" and therefore fell foul of British laws, though he admitted that he had not seen it and therefore could not judge. But, in any case, is he right? Is it against the law?
     People have always been free under the criminal law to speak their minds, provided they did not, in doing so, incite others to commit violence or infringe public order. ... However, it is necessary to demonstrate that the words complained of are likely to stir up hatred and public disorder, not merely to complain that they are unpleasant or objectionable to some. Imams have been allowed to continue preaching in mosques when it could be argued that they have overstepped this mark, as when they have called for the death of homosexuals or Jews.
     Wilders is no advertisement for free speech. After all, he wants the Koran to be banned. But that is not the point. It is what this affair says about us, not him, that matters. Is Britain now adopting a position where people who support suicide bombers and jihad are able to make known their opinions without legal challenge, whereas those who oppose them cannot?
     The very people who in 1989 were demanding the murder of Salman Rushdie for writing a book are today leading the charge against a Dutch MP for making a film. The fundamental difference is that 20 years ago, the government supported free speech; today, it has cravenly surrendered. It is simply not good enough to say that Wilders should not be heard because he might provoke a backlash from those who do not like him or his views. That is not upholding the law. That is appeasement.

Bias – BBC, racism
Golly: now we know what's truly offensive
Charles Moore
Daily Telegraph, 5 February 2009

     Commenting on the BBC's decision to sack Carol Thatcher from The One Show because she described a tennis player as looking like a "golliwog", a spokesman for the corporation said: "The BBC considers any language of a racist nature wholly unacceptable." ...
     If Carol used the supposedly shocking word "golliwog", you can be quite sure that she used it without malice – indeed, with good will. The worst that you could possibly say about her was that her choice of words was thoughtless.
     But, before you say that, you come to the second question. Since when has the BBC decided that what is said off screen, in the studio, is a matter of career life or death? I have spent more hours than I care to remember sitting in BBC studios, and the remarks I have heard in them, often delivered by household names, have frequently strayed – I am putting this politely – from the standards supposedly demanded by the BBC on air. I have heard racism (usually against Americans), sexism (usually against Carol's mother), blasphemy, obscenity, rage, bias. If I had decided to profess myself "shocked" (as Adrian Chiles, the presenter of The One Show, did), and if I had then sneaked to the authorities, would the speaker have been thrown out of his job? Should he have been?
     A BBC executive might argue – though I would disagree – that the word "golliwog" is so offensive that it should never be broadcast. As an experienced broadcaster herself, Carol Thatcher might be expected to be aware of that sensitivity and be careful about it. But she was not broadcasting. She committed no offence, professional or moral – not even, since the person she described was not in the room, an offence of manners. ...
     A third question arises for the corporation. We have it from its spokesman's own lips that any racist language is "wholly unacceptable". How does that square with its fervent commitment, constantly repeated in the affair of Jonathan Ross, to "cutting edge" comedy? ...
     You and I might think that the joys of "edgy" comedy are overrated, but if we are to have it, wouldn't it be edgier to have words like "golliwog" scattered about as well? Why not antagonise Disgusted of Brixton, as well as Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells? ...
     So this affair enables us to understand better what the BBC is really up to when it pays Jonathan Ross so much money to swear and talk on screen about bodily functions and sex with octogenarians for hours on end. It is not engaged in a brave, if misguided, attempt to challenge the conventional opinions of viewers in general in order to shake them out of their complacency and strike a blow for artistic innovation. If that were the case, it would also insult homosexuals, the prophet Mohammed, President Obama, racial minorities, and anyone else who qualifies for the strangely assorted club of those who earn special deference from our modern elites.
     No, what the BBC is doing is the cultural target-bombing of people who are very numerous, but whose attitudes do not accord with those of its senior executives – old people, white people, Christian people, monarchist people, people who value politeness, conservative people, provincial people, suburban people, rural people – many people, I suspect, who are reading this article.
[Site link]

Bias – BBC, multiculturalism, diversity
How to save the BBC from itself (and get its hand out of our pockets)
Jeff Randall
Daily Telegraph, 4 July 2008
[Jeff Randall was the BBC's business editor, 2001-05]

     In 2003, I was fighting an internal battle to bring more balance to the BBC's coverage of immigration. I felt that some of its reporters had been programmed to promote the benefits of cultural diversity as an incontrovertible fact.
     Fed up with what he perceived to be my subversion, one of the BBC's most senior figures sent me an email: "The BBC internally is not neutral about multiculturalism. It believes in it and promotes diversity. Let's face up to that."
     I was amazed that he felt unembarrassed to put this in a formal memo. It revealed an arrogant mindset at odds with millions of his customers. Impartiality was fine, but only if it confirmed the prejudices of the BBC's editorial elite, the self-appointed custodians of liberal values.

Bias – BBC
BBC is fuelling attacks on Poles, says MP
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 5 June 2008

     The BBC was accused yesterday of fuelling racist attacks on Polish immigrants.
     The Conservative MP Danny Kawczynski said that the BBC's coverage of immigration issues tended to concentrate on Poles even though most immigrants to Britain came from outside Europe.
     The result, he said, was a rising number of assaults on Poles living here.
     Mr Kawczynski highlighted his concerns in the Commons when he introduced a Bill calling for a bank holiday to mark the positive contribution that Poles have made to the United Kingdom since 1940.
     "The liberal elite of the BBC constantly refer to immigration from Poland because they are using the Polish community as a cat's paw to try to tackle the thorny issue of mass unchecked immigration into our country," he said.
     Mr Kawczynski, who represents Shrewsbury and Atcham, also said discrimination would not be allowed if targeted at other ethnic groups. ...
     

Bias – border security
Taxpayers fund TV series on migrants
Lucy Cockcroft
Daily Telegraph, 21 May 2008

     The Home Office is spending £400,000 of taxpayers' money to fund a television documentary that will aim to convince the public that it is beating the problem of illegal immigration.
     The eight-part series, which follows immigration officers on their duties, marks the biggest investment the department has made to promote its work enforcing border controls.
     It is part of a drive by Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, to show she is tough on illegal immigration.
     The series, which will be shown on Sky One, will acknowledge the co-operation the Government has given to the production company, Steadfast Television.
     However, there will be no mention that it has been partly financed by the Home Office, raising questions about how impartial it will be.

Bias
Mirror pays out over lobby group slur
Stephen Brook
The Guardian, 26 November 2007

     The Daily Mirror has agreed to pay costs and damages to Migrationwatch UK, after star columnist Brian Reade compared the lobby group to the Nazi party and the Ku Klux Klan.
     In today's paper the Mirror apologised to the organisation's head, Sir Andrew Green, and said it had agreed to pay damages after Reade's column on September 13. ...
     "We accept that the allegations were untrue," the paper said in an apology on page 18 today.
[Site link]

Bias – BBC
BBC viewers angered by its 'innate liberal bias'
Nicole Martin
Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2007

     The BBC is operating in a "leftleaning comfort zone" and has an "innate liberal bias" according to a report commissioned by the corporation.
     The report, From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel, said that the BBC's drift towards a liberal-minded approach to programmes risked stifling originality and angering viewers.
     Mark Byford, the BBC's deputy director-general, said: "Impartiality is a core value for the BBC, which is non-negotiable and central to its relationship with licence-fee payers.
     "As audience behaviours change and the media landscape develops rapidly, the BBC has to keep asking itself how best to safeguard impartiality in this digital age."
     Andrew Marr, the BBC's former political editor, said at a seminar last year that the BBC is "a publicly funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people compared with the population at large." ...
     A survey of viewers found that the corporation was generally seen as impartial.
     However, some respondents felt it had gone "too far" in its representation of racial minorities and was too politically correct. ...
     Most respondents outside south-east England believed that they were under-represented.

Bias – BBC
The BBC can't kick its addiction to bias
Damian Thompson
Daily Telegraph, 19 June 2007

     Yesterday the BBC Trust published From Seesaw to Wagon Wheel, an 81-page report with the subtitle "Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century". That's a bit like the late Boris Yeltsin talking about safeguarding his sobriety. It is, however, the first time the corporation has attempted to address the question, so we should read the report carefully.
     The first reaction is to sigh with relief. The report acknowledges that "mainstream opinion" was wrong to attack monetarism, to belittle Euro-sceptics as small-minded and blinkered, and to assume that multi-culturalism would solve the problems of immigration. ...
     This report is a step in the right direction. But, as anyone who has ever dealt with an alcoholic will confirm, it is best not to get your hopes up. Nothing will happen without a desire to change; and I don't think Auntie is ready to come off the sauce.

Bias – adoptions
The improved lot of Romanian orphans
Lady Nicholson of Winterbourne, MEP
Daily Telegraph, 14 November 2006

     There have been protests about Romania's decision to ban international adoptions, coming from individual politicians in France and America, but these are the result of the multi-million-dollar lobby for international adoptions - a lobby that represents a shadowy, unaccountable and deeply unethical industry.

Bias – BBC
The BBC's commitment to bias is no laughing matter
Tom Leonard
Daily Telegraph, 27 October 2006

     But no matter how much BBC bosses swear blind there is no problem, the issue refuses to go away. Why? Because for many licence-payers, the BBC's skewed assumptions about what the world is about and how its inhabitants should think is the most annoying thing about it - more annoying than dumbing down, than the universal licence fee, than Jonathan Ross's £18 million pay packet. More annoying even than Natasha Kaplinsky. And particularly infuriating when the BBC denies it outright, as did Michael Grade, the BBC chairman, in an article published a few days before a governors' impartiality summit a month ago.
     ... Anyway, embarrassingly it emerged ... that even some of his most senior journalists disagreed. Andrew Marr, hardly one of the BBC's token Right- wingers, declared that the BBC "is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people". It has, he added, "a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias."

Bias – BBC, multiculturalism
We are biased, admit the stars of BBC News
Simon Walters
Mail on Sunday, 21 October 2006

     It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism.
     A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.
     It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.
     At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.
     One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.
     'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.' ...
     The full account of the meeting shows how senior BBC figures queued up to lambast their employer.
     Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'
     Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.
     Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.' ...
     There was another heated debate when the summit discussed whether the BBC was too sensitive about criticising black families for failing to take responsibility for their children.
     Head of news Helen Boaden disclosed that a Radio 4 programme which blamed black youths at a young offenders' institution for bullying white inmates faced the axe until she stepped in.
     But Ms Fitzpatrick, who has said that the BBC should not use white reporters in non-white countries, argued it had a duty to 'contextualise' why black youngsters behaved in such a way.
     Andrew Marr told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The BBC must always try to reflect Britain, which is mostly a provincial, middle-of-the-road country. Britain is not a mirror image of the BBC or the people who work for it.'

BORDER CONTROLS

Border controls – racism, education
Academics boycott visa 'snooping'
BBC, 29 May 2009

     University academics say they will boycott new visa rules for overseas students that would make them into "immigration snoopers".
     Delegates at the University and College Union's annual conference said they did not want to become a branch of the UK Border Agency.
     Under the new rules universities are expected to monitor whether overseas students really attend their courses.
     The Home Office said such things were part of their normal duty of care.
     Institutions must also report concerns that a student could be involved in terrorism.
     In a debate at the conference, in Bournemouth, delegates argued that the rules would place a strain on the relationship between staff and students from outside the European Union.
     General secretary Sally Hunt said: "UCU members are educators not border guards."
     She said later: "Politically, UCU is absolutely opposed to this legislation and we know that many members have strong and principled moral objections as members of society and as professional educators. ...
     One of the resolutions tabled for discussion said the new system "makes educators into immigration snoopers which could damage UK education irreparably".
     It deplored "this pandering to anti-immigration racism" and committed the union to "non-compliance with all such policing and surveillance duties".
     But a Home Office spokesman said: "Educational institutions have a duty of care to all their students and checking that they are attending and making progress in their studies is part of that responsibility.
     "The records we expect education providers to keep are those which most will keep for their own purposes anyway."
[Site link]

Border controls – terrorism, education
Four terror suspects won university places through bogus Manchester college
Andrew Norfolk
The Times, 21 May 2009

     Four terrorism suspects were given places at English universities after leaving the bogus Manchester College of Professional Studies.
     John Moores University, Liverpool, and Liverpool Hope University confirmed yesterday that each had accepted two of the detainees and that all four students submitted diplomas from the fake college as part of their application. Both universities insisted that they had disregarded the Manchester certificates, accepting the men instead on the basis of their university degrees from Pakistan. ...
     The Home Office says that in Pakistan, which it classifies as "high risk", additional checks are made on applicants to seek independent verification of prospective students' qualifications. As a result, the refusal rate for student visa applications from Pakistan has risen from 53 per cent in 2006 to 69 per cent last year. Despite this, the number of Pakistani citizens in the UK on student visas has soared.
     A critical flaw in the new regulations, however, means that there is still no limit on how many international students a sponsor college is allowed to enrol. It may have become more difficult to beat the system, but it is not impossible.
[Site link]

Border controls – terrorism, education
Sham colleges open doors to Pakistani terror suspects
Andrew Norfolk
The Times, 21 May 2009

     Thousands of young Pakistanis exploited a hole in Britain's immigration defences to enrol as students at a network of sham colleges, The Times can reveal.
     The gateway, opened by fraudsters who have earned millions from the scam, has allowed in hundreds of men from a region of Pakistan that is the militant heartland of al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban.
     Eight of the terror suspects arrested last month in Manchester and Liverpool were on the books of one college. It had three small classrooms and three teachers for the 1,797 students on its books. Another college claimed to have 150 students but secretly enrolled 1,178 and offered places to a further 1,575 overseas applicants, 906 of them in Pakistan. ...
     The Times has uncovered close ties between 11 colleges in London, Manchester and Bradford, all formed in the past five years and controlled by three young Pakistani businessmen.
     Each of the three men entered the country on a student visa. One has fled to Pakistan after earning an estimated £6 million from the scam. Fayaz Ali Khan and another man are in the UK.
     All but two of the ten students arrested last month over an alleged al-Qaeda bomb plot were enrolled over an 11-month period at Manchester College of Professional Studies. Two Liverpool universities admitted last night that they had given places to four of them, ...
     The massive fraud has fuelled a surge in student arrivals from Pakistan, which the Prime Minister has identified as the birthplace of two thirds of terrorist plots in the UK. Between 2002 and 2007, the number of Pakistani nationals with permission to enter or remain in the UK as students jumped from 7,975 to 26,935.
[Site link]

Border controls
Former pub became the centre of a web of bogus colleges
Andrew Norfolk
The Times, 21 May 2009

     Among the fast-food shops, Haj travel agents, halal butchers, curry houses and money-exchange outlets is a former pub, reborn in 2006 as Manchester College of Professional Studies.
     Here, two young men from a town in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) in Pakistan – in Britain on student visas – started a scam that would earn them a small fortune.
     The Times has evidence that in 15 months from October 2006 they enrolled 1,143 foreign students, most Pakistanis, and sold bogus college qualifications to enable another 654 to extend their stay in the UK. ...
     Most students, however, had no intention of entering a classroom. They were in the UK to earn as much as possible for as long as possible. ...
     ... For the vast majority of students, the documents were a charade. The college was a front that provided cover for students to do whatever they wanted in Britain.
     Most came from Pakistan, but hundreds were also admitted from Nigeria and other countries in Africa, South Asia and the Far East. ...
     Manchester College of Professional Studies was also affiliated with Blackpool University, again based in Dublin, established "under the order of the King of Belgium" and licensed by the Accreditation Council of Higher Education (ACHE).
     All of which might sound impressive until one learns that ACHE is based in Wallis and Futuna, an island group in the South Pacific.
     Finally, the college also posed as a study centre for the University of Newcastle, which is really the online University of New Castle, incorporated "in the sate (sic) of Delaware" and, like Blackpool University, accredited by a group of South Pacific islands.
     Mr Fayaz and his friends could run their scams for so long because the UK's system for controlling and monitoring international students was – until last month – lamentable. He was able to open a college and gain a place on the Government's register of educational providers by completing an online application. No one checked his background, no one came – at the outset – to inspect his premises and no one sought to discover whether the teachers he said he was employing had the qualifications claimed.
     Advance notice was given of the periodic Home Office visits made after the college opened, so there was always time to make sure associates and employees were sitting studiously in a classroom when an inspector arrived. Astonishingly, there was not even a system for limiting or monitoring how many students a college enrolled. ...
     One bad apple would have been one too many, but The Times has uncovered a tangled web linking 11 international colleges formed during the past five years, in Manchester, Bradford, London and Essex.
     A few barely existed beyond their registered office address, others had impressive internet sites and some even gave lessons to a minority of the students they enrolled. ...
[Site link]

Border controls – European Union
Exclusive: EU'S £14bn vain bid to halt migrants
Ted Jeory
Sunday Express, 17 May 2009

     Vast amounts of taxpayers' money has been squandered on a "disastrous" scheme to stem the flow of illegal migrants into Europe.
     More than £14 billion – of which Britain's share is an estimated £1.4 billion – has gone on a French-inspired project called the Barcelona Process.
     But much of the cash has ended up in the pockets of north African officials who fail to prevent mass migration.
     Yet despite the enormous sums involved, the European Union has not once published a detailed breakdown of spending on the venture and produced just one high-level audit of the project's total spending in 14 years.
     Incredibly, EU leaders are set to sanction another £550 million on a similar project in eastern Europe.
     The Barcelona Process is an alliance between the 27-member EU and 16 countries from the southern Mediterranean and Middle East.
     Its main aim has been to combat illegal immigration from north Africa to southern EU members such as Spain, Italy and Portugal.
     But more than 100,000 migrants a year are still estimated to enter Europe illegally via the Mediterranean, a fifth of the total.
     Leading Eurosceptic Tory MP Bill Cash said: "The process has been disastrous. It does us no good to raise the volume of expenditure in the vain belief it will curtail illegal immigration. It doesn't work like that. The money just disappears into rivers of slush funds and hopeless corruption."
     Labour MP Michael Connarty, who chairs the European Scrutiny Committee, said: "If we create a stable buffer between north Africa and Europe it will be money well spent, but we've made no progress."
     An EU spokeswoman claimed the Barcelona Process fostered "cohesion and co-operation".
[Site link]

Border controls – crime, education
Fewer colleges for foreign students
Daily Telegraph, 13 May 2009

     The number of colleges accepting foreign students has been cut by more than 13,000 after the introduction of new rules earlier this year.
     Each college applying for a licence was visited by an official from the UK Border Agency as part of a drive to root out fake institutions. There were fears that many colleges were fronts for illegal immigration.
     The list of colleges sponsoring student visas has fallen from 15,000 to 1,500.

Border controls – crime
Foreign lorries responsible for 90% of smuggled migrants
David Pilditch
Daily Express, 25 April 2009

     Nine out of 10 lorry drivers who smuggle illegal immigrants into Britain are from overseas, shocking figures revealed yesterday.
     Even Labour's official statistics show the Government has failed to collect more than £1million in fines owed by hauliers registered abroad who have been caught red-handed.
     Yesterday critics said the damning figures expose the full scale of Britain's shambolic immigration policies and lax border security. It comes after the UK Border Agency revealed 1,571 foreign truckers were issued fines last year after illegal immigrants were found hiding in the back of their vehicles.
     This compares with only 195 British lorries found to have stowaways. In theory drivers and owners face fines of £2,000 for each illegal migrant. But the figures, released under the Freedom of Information Act, show just £2million has been collected from foreign firms, a shortfall of at least £1million. British hauliers have been fined around £300,000.
     Last night, British operators complained the system was being abused by unscrupulous foreign drivers who can earn up to £1,500 from each person they smuggle across the Channel.
     Trucker Mervyn Osgood, 54, from Maidstone in Kent, said: "It's an absolute farce. We always see the foreign drivers talking to the migrants in Calais." Immigrants gather to scramble on to vehicles at the ferry port in a notorious area known as Diesel Alley.
     Mr Osgood said foreign truckers simply ignored the fines, sometimes not even telling their bosses they had been caught.
     "To them it's worth the risk. They get £1,500 from each illegal, so if they get four on, they pocket around £6,000. Then they just unload their cargoes and head back to their countries."
     The Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green insisted the Government was to blame. He said: "Clearly many foreign truckers are abusing our immigration laws and they should be punished effectively. "However, the problem often is that they may be convicted of offences relating to illegal migration but are continuing to operate in the same vehicles."
     Last night the agency admitted: "These figures don't reflect the actual figure because there is often more than one clandestine found per vehicle." He said 28,000 migrants were caught trying to sneak into Britain on board lorries crossing the Channel last year.
     The records show foreign truckers were fined a further £811,507 for working in Britain without the necessary haulage permits. Lorry drivers can unwittingly bring in illegal immigrants who jump inside their vehicles without them realising what is happening.
     But other operators accept cash from people-smuggling gangs led by east Europeans, Afghans and Iraqis.
[Site link]

Border controls
France 'ready to dump migrants in Britain'
Peter Allen and Anil Dawar
Daily Express, 24 April 2009

     France wants Britain to sign a deal allowing thousands of migrants to flood into the UK.
     Calais mayor Natacha Bouchart's controversial plan to scrap passport controls was announced as migrants in the port staged an angry demo yesterday, waving placards written in flawless English.
     The banners expose how Britain's open-door asylum system and benefits culture are a magnet for Afghans, Kurds and Eritreans.
     Exasperated by the sight of migrants sleeping rough as they try to board England-bound trains and lorries illegally, Mrs Bouchart outlined her scheme to rid Calais of the blight to French Immigration Minister Eric Besson.
     "It's necessary to speed up negotiations with the British because at the moment we're ready to charter a boat to dump them over there," she said.
     She said all Britain had to do was sign up to the Schengen Agreement, which allows anybody to travel between EU states without passports or visas.
     Mr Besson challenged Britain to share responsibility for France's problem by asking why migrants from places such as Iran, Somalia and Sudan travel across the world to reach the UK.
     "Britain should step up its controls and take on more of this burden," he said. "Britain should also question why migrants and the traffickers in migrants believe that the British illegal job market is a golden opportunity." ...
     Mrs Bouchart said if Britain signed up to Schengen, then the migrants could make their way direct to the UK to claim asylum, rather than using France as a platform to get there illegally. ...
     Responding to the plan to make Calais a passport-free zone, Immigration Minister Phil Woolas said: "UK policy is to not sign up to the Schengen Agreement. Weakening our controls will only play into the hands of the traffickers.
[Site link]

Border controls – welfare state
Calais mayor blames Britain for immigration problems
Peter Allen
Daily Telegraph, 21 April 2009

     The mayor of Calais, Natacha Bouchart, has blamed Britain's asylum and benefits system for "imposing" thousands of illegal migrants on her town.
     In an angry attack in which she also called for millions in compensation, Natacha Bouchart said the UK was entirely to blame for the hordes of foreigners who use the French port as a staging point to get across the Channel. ...
     Mrs Bouchart pointed out that the Calais Chamber of Trade was having to spend £12 million each year securing the port area – money she suggested the French government should pay back.
     But it was Britain's immigration system which was predominantly to blame for thousands of Africans, eastern Europeans and people from central Asia trying to clamber aboard lorries and trains in Calais to get to the UK every day.
     "Requesting asylum is easier with them (the British) than in France," said Mrs Bouchart.
     "The asylum seeker is given accommodation and receives £31 to £40 a week according to their case, when the annual salary of the average Eritrean is around $200 (£136).
     "That seems enormous and it's attractive, even if in some places it's nothing."
     Calling for a "change in attitude", Mrs Bouchart said the current build up of UK-bound foreigners was untenable. ...
     French immigration minister Eric Besson is due to outline new policies for dealing with the worsening situation in Calais.
     Some 2,000 UK-bound migrants are currently sleeping rough in the area, with around 800 in the town itself.
[Site link]

Border controls
'Risky' students who want a visa will be interviewed by phone
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 21 April 2009

     Fresh questions were raised yesterday over Britain's security after the Home Secretary admitted some visa applications were decided over the phone.
     Pakistani students wanting to study in Britain who are deemed a risk may only be interviewed over the phone, and from outside the country, it emerged.
     And the Home Office revealed that final decisions on any visa applications from Pakistan were now being dealt with by officials in the United Arab Emirates.
     The disclosure raises fresh security fears around the student visa system after it emerged all but one of the 12 suspects being held over an alleged plot to bomb shopping centres in Manchester came to Britain from Pakistan using student visas. ...
     It later emerged Abu Dhabi is being used as a "hub" for UK immigration officials to take final decisions, although fingerprints and documents of applicants are being checked in Pakistan first.

Border controls
£8m for border agency ads
Matthew Moore
Daily Telegraph, 16 April 2009

     Britain's border agency is spending nearly £8 million a year on advertising and public relations, it was disclosed yesterday.
     The Home Office body has allocated large sums to its promotional budget despite concern about its failings to stem illegal immigration.
     While other government departments and private sector companies are cutting jobs in the recession, the agency is advertising a range of roles in a new communications campaign team, paying up to £56,000 a year.
     The figures were released in a parliamentary answer to the Tories by Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister.
     New research indicates that at least 250,000 migrant workers are employed in the country unregistered.

Border controls – education
Bogus foreign students free to flout new laws
Richard Ford and Andrew Norfolk
The Times, 15 April 2009

     Thousands of bogus students remain free to enter Britain despite new laws aimed at tightening controls on immigration. The Times has learnt that hundreds of colleges recently approved by the Home Office to accept non-EU students have not been inspected by its officers.
     Weaknesses in the student visa system have emerged following the arrest of 12 terror suspects last week. Ten of the men entered this country from Pakistan on student visas.
     It has also emerged that the vast majority of non-EU students will not be interviewed by the Home Office but admitted on the basis of written applications and evidence of sponsorship, educational qualifications and bank statements. ...
     John Tincey, the chairman of the Immigration Service Union, said that the failure to include interviews could be exploited by terrorists.
     Under the system, universities, colleges and schools must register with the Home Office to accept students from outside the EU. They must agree to alert the Home Office if a student fails to register, stops attending classes or if a course is shortened and keep copies of the students' passports as well as up-to-date contact addresses.
     The new regime came in two weeks ago and is intended to end a scam in which thousands of foreigners enrolled at bogus colleges to work here. So far, 2,100 establishments have been registered and 400 rejected. There are 14,000 establishments on an earlier database that need to register.
     Today The Times highlights the abuses under the old regime, described by the Immigration Minister as the Achilles' heel of the system.
     At one college in Manchester that claims to have more than 100 students – most of them from North West Frontier Province in Pakistan – only two turned up for classes yesterday.
     An international college in London with links to Pakistani businessmen was raided by the police and the UK Border Agency in December. It was alleged that individuals attached to the college earned £5 million processing up to 2,500 fraudulent visa applications.
[Site link]

Border controls – crime, education
£100 fakes helping terrorists into UK
Nick Meo and Emal Khan
Sunday Telegraph, 12 April 2009

     Forged degree certificates, fake income tax returns and bogus payslips were on sale in Pakistan yesterday – all valuable tools for terrorists to obtain student visas for Britain.
     An investigation ... has found that documents could be obtained for less than £100 by anyone seeking to support their application to study in Britain.
     As concerns grew about the screening processes that allowed 11 of the 12 bomb suspects to enter Britain, self-styled "immigration consultants" in Pakistan were hard at work trying to beat the system. ...
     Many British universities have representative offices in Pakistan's main cities through which they recruit students. ... ...
     ... Such documents are widely available under the counter from immigration consultants all over Pakistan.
     The paperwork is designed to convince British immigration officials that applicants want to learn and can pay for their courses, even though some are virtually illiterate and only want jobs.
     Britain has a reputation for being easy to enter. ... Nearly 4,000 immigration consultants are thought to be operating in Pakistan's capital Islamabad and its twin city Rawalpindi. ...
     Many of the forgeries are crude and unlikely to fool immigration officers, but others are sophisticated. The size of the industry shows how much effort is put in to thwart the system at every stage.

Border controls – education
One in four colleges for foreigners 'bogus'
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 1 April 2009

     Bogus colleges that help illegal immigrants slip into Britain are the "Achilles' heel" in the system, a Home Office minister admitted yesterday.
     Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said fake colleges and language schools were the "biggest loophole" in the system because figures indicated that almost one in four was potentially bogus. New visa rules that came into force yesterday meant overseas students needed to be accepted by genuine institutions before they could enter Britain.
     Colleges and universities who wanted to take foreign students had to register with the Home Office. Of the 5,000 thought to take foreign students, only 2,100 had so far applied to have their credentials checked. Of those, 460 were rejected. ...
     It was estimated that up to 2,000 "bogus" colleges could be forced to close.
     Frank Field, the co-chairman of the Commons cross-party group on balanced migration, said the number of colleges rejected was "worrying" but "not a totally astonishing revelation".
     "While ministers are right to tighten the immigration system, this uncovers the shambles that they have allowed to develop – a huge number of dodgy colleges, some of which are simply designed to get around immigration controls," he said.
     Nicholas Soames, his co-chairman, added: "Given that there are nearly a quarter of a million non-EU students in British higher education institutions, the question this poses is: 'How many are here under false pretences?' Ministers need to answer that question in Parliament."

Border controls
Calais detention centre is approved
Melissa Kite
Sunday Telegraph, 22 March 2009

     A new detention centre to help stop illegal immigrants entering Britain has been approved in Calais and is about to be built, according to government documents.
     There was confusion this week when France's immigration minister claimed he had no knowledge of the centre, but a letter from the UK Border Agency to the Director of Migration in Paris seen by this newspaper reveals that British and French officials had held discussions and agreed "joint action".
     ... Britain will provide half the €500,000 (£470,000) needed for the project.

Border controls
Daily Telegraph, 19 March 2009

     Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, faced ridicule yesterday after his French counterpart dismissed plans for an immigrant detention centre in Calais, just a day after Mr Woolas announced it.

Border controls
Taxpayer to fund Calais migrants centre
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 18 March 2009

     A detention centre is being planned for Calais to hold hundreds of illegal immigrants trying to sneak across the Channel – and British taxpayers will help pay for it.
     Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, said the proposed centre is at the heart of joint Anglo-French plans to tackle the problem of illegal immigrants flocking to the French port.
     Charter flights that would return detainees to their home countries are also planned – in particular to Afghanistan and Iraq where the majority of unlawful immigrants come from.
     News of the proposals came as hundreds of immigrants bound for Britain were in a gang fight in central Calais. Dozens were injured as violence broke out between rival groups, many armed with knives or makeshift weapons.
     The Government is pushing for the detention centre, and is even willing to help pay for it, but is awaiting formal agreement from France. ... ...
     Whitehall sources said that the Government would help pay for the centre because it felt a sense of responsibility over the fact that many of the immigrants are in Calais after failing to enter Britain.

Border controls
Unpaid parking fine? Don't attempt to leave the country
David Millward
Daily Telegraph, 16 March 2009

     A million motorists with unpaid parking fines could be stopped from leaving the country under powers used to secure British borders.
     Ministers are examining whether to use an "e-borders" system to track the travel plans of everyone leaving the country to recoup almost £1 billion in outstanding fines and court orders imposed for criminal and driving offences.
     An "Explanatory Memorandum" to the Immigration and Asylum Act prepared by the Home Office says e-borders could help recoup millions of pounds of unpaid fines.

Border controls
Trips abroad to be logged
David Millward
Daily Telegraph, 14 March 2009

     The travel plans and personal details of every holidaymaker, business traveller and day-tripper who leaves Britain are to be tracked by the Government, ...
     Anyone departing by land, sea or air will have the trip recorded and stored on a database for a decade. ...
     The owners of light aircraft will also be brought under the system, known as e-borders, which will eventually track 250 million journeys annually. ...
     Travellers will have to supply information such as passport and credit card details, home and email addresses and exact itineraries.
     The changes are being brought in as the Government tries to tighten border controls and increase protection against international terrorism. ...
     The checks are being brought in piecemeal by the UK Border Agency. By the end of the year, 60 per cent of journeys out of Britain will be affected, and 95 per cent by the end of 2010.
     Yachtsmen, trawlermen and private pilots will have until 2014 to comply. ...
     Currently passports are not routinely checked when people leave the country. Exit controls for those staying within the European Union were scrapped by the last Conservative government.
     The rest were scrapped by Jack Straw as Home Secretary after Labour won in 1997.
     However, passport inspections at ports have gradually been reintroduced as the Government looks to prevent anyone on its watch-list fleeing the country. ...
     A UK Border Agency spokesman insisted: "The e-Borders scheme has already screened over 82 million passengers travelling to Britain, leading to more than 2,900 arrests, for crimes including murder, drug dealing and sex offences."

Border controls – asylum
French to build 'mini Sangattes' in Calais
Peter Allen
Daily Telegraph, 13 March 2009

     A string of "mini Sangatte" welcome centres for illegal migrants bound for Britain are to be built near Calais.
     Eric Besson, the French immigration minister, confirmed that the "light buildings" would provide services such as food, showers and information about how to claim asylum once migrants arrived in Britain. ...
     Mr Besson said the centres would help to deal with the growing numbers. ...
     Up to 2,000 people sleep rough in the area as they try to board trains and lorries to Dover, often paying up to £1,000 to human traffickers.
     An interviewer from VSD, the French magazine, asked the minister: "So, you're constructing mini Sangattes?"
     Mr Besson replied: "But they won't be permanent sleeping centres for illegal migrants."
     Sangatte, the overcrowded refugee camp, was closed in 2003 after riots.
     The move marked a change in policy by the minister who previously promised to make the port "watertight" to illegal migrants.

Border controls
Calais border guards too soft, says asylum seeker
Daily Telegraph, 13 February 2009

     A group of Iraqi migrants have claimed they evaded security in Calais and entered the UK by saying one word – "family" – to border guards.
     Faradh Maruj, 28, who has claimed asylum and is living in Birmingham, had paid people smugglers £560 in cash to get him across the Channel with his wife and their two young sons.
     They got into the cab of a Dutch lorry which was stopped by customs officials in Calais. Mr Maruj said: "I said 'family' and the customs official shut the door."

Border controls
Stowaway migrant numbers double
David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 8 February 2009

     The number of illegal immigrants found hiding in lorries after entering Britain has more than doubled in two years.
     More than 3,300 immigrants were picked up in eight months last year, compared with 1,400 in a 12-month period in 2006-7. ...
     Chris Huhne, the Lib Dem home affairs spokesman, who uncovered the figures, said: "For years our border controls have been shambolic and the increase in lorry stowaways is another example of the problem. We need a national border force with police powers to ensure that only legal migrants enter Britain."
     Any illegal immigrant who makes it on to British soil can claim asylum but those detected before they arrive in the country, for example at French ports, can be refused entry. ...
     The rise is believed to coincide with the privatisation of lorry searches at French ports.

Border controls
New country, New Year birthday
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 30 January 2009

     Thousands of asylum seekers, illegal immigrants and other foreigners arriving in Britain every year are being given New Year's Day as their date of birth because officials don't know when they were born.
     More than 24,000 people had Jan 1 entered as their birthday on immigration databases in 2008. Sources said attempts to guess ages meant some adults were being classed as children and would not be deported immediately if they were in the country unlawfully.
     One police officer said: "We arrest some asylum seekers with full beard and they are obviously not 16, but it says so on their papers and so they are convicted as minors."

Border controls
Immigration: Britain 'is to blame'
Nick Fagge
Daily Express, 28 January 2009

     Britain was last night accused of failing to stop the tide of illegal immigrants arriving from France.
     New hard-line French immigration minister Eric Besson condemned our lax security at the Channel Tunnel and ferry ports which encouraged thousands to try to enter Britain illegally every year.
     Speaking during a crisis visit yesterday to Calais, where some 2,000 British-bound refugees are massed, he said the failure of ministers in this country had created the impression that the UK was somewhere that illegal immigrants could disappear with little prospect of being deported.
     Mr Besson said: "Our English partners must apply themselves more actively in the reinforcement of checks and in security in Calais."
     He also pledged he would never allow another Sangatte-style refugee camp as he visited some of the makeshift shelters scattered along the French coast.
     He said: "I'll be meeting my British counterpart over the coming days to discuss this subject precisely. Our English partners want to see controls strictly enforced. Me too.
     "I'm therefore going to propose to my British colleague to put in place a common strategy to reinforce the checks and make passage through the Tunnel or by the port the most watertight possible to illegal immigration."
     His comments follow those of a senior French politician, Etienne Pinte, who earlier this month said the UK was solely to blame for the build-up of thousands of migrants in northern France.
     He condemned Britain's "inhumane and illegal" immigration policies which he said had caused "utter misery".
     Mr Pinte said: "Britain is seen as an Eldorado by migrants across the world. It's up to Great Britain to find a dignified and humane solution to a problem which solely concerns it."
     Yesterday Mr Besson said he was determined to achieve a lasting solution to the "refugee problem", which had not been solved with the closure of the notorious Red Cross centre at nearby Sangatte in 2002. ...
     Former Home Office Minister Ann Widdecombe said: "Until the message gets out that if you come to Britain with a false claim you will be dealt with quickly and deported, there is a tremendous incentive for people to come to Britain.
     "We do not have identity cards and we have a flourishing black economy in which people can disappear. Only until we change all of that will the message finally get out." ...
     Last night a UK Border Agency spokesman said: "We will continue to work with France – one of our closest partners – in fighting illegal migration. Our shared determination has already created one of the toughest border crossings in the world at Calais.
     "In the last five years we have stopped over 88,500 attempts from people trying to enter the UK illegally. Around 61,000 of those were at Calais alone. ..."
[Site link]

Border controls – visas
Visas being approved 'because a refusal means more work'
Daily Telegraph, 12 January 2009

     Immigration officers face "perverse incentives" to grant visas to foreigners, an influential group of MPs says today. Staff must provide far less evidence as to why they have approved an application to come to Britain than they do if they choose to reject one.
     This has led to a warning that inappropriate applicants are being approved. It comes less than two months after a watchdog reported that about 300,000 foreigners who should not be granted visas were allowed in to Britain every year.
     A report by the Commons home affairs select committee today says that while the reasons for a visa refusal are regularly reviewed, those for an approval are not.
     MPs questioned whether this led to a "tendency to be tempted to approve more applications than one should on the basis that the work is never going to be checked". ...
     Nearly two million visas are approved in Britain each year.

Border controls
Increased immigration fears as French charity sets up camp for illegal migrants heading to UK
Daily Mail, 1 December 2008

     A French charity has enraged UK officials by setting up a camp to help illegal migrants bound for the UK.
     The centre is in the northern French town of Steenvoorde, which is on the main motorway heading to the ports of Calais and Dunkirk. It has marquees with beds, toilets and kitchens.
     It was set up by Terre d'Errance Steenvoorde, a new charity and is designed for the thousands of migrants who regularly make their way to Channel ports in the hope of reaching the UK by ferry or train.
     But UK officials believe the centre will become a magnate for thousands of unwanted foreigners.
     And they fear it could cause similar problems to Sangatte, the former Red Cross centre near Calais, which housed thousands of migrants on their way to Britain. Sangatte was bulldozed as part of an Anglo-French deal in 2002. The new camp was put up on Sunday and the charity intends to apply to the local council to have it made legal by the end of the week.
     It is likely to receive the backing of local mayor Jean-Pierre Bataille who said the village was 'an important logistical platform' on the long road from blighted third world countries to the UK.
     Charities said that increasingly tough measures being used to rid Calais of illegal migrants had caused a humanitarian disaster, with hundreds forced to sleep rough.
     'Nobody else wants to help these people, so we will,' said a spokesman for Terre d'Errance Steenvoorde.
     'Hundreds use the village as a staging point on their journey to England, and we want to give them accommodation and food,' the spokesman added.
     Among the camp's first residents are a group of Africans, including two men and four women, who claim to be from the war-torn country of Eritrea.
     All are dreaming of a new life in the UK, where they hope to be able to find permanent accommodation and jobs.
     'We will stay in Steenvorde for a short while before resuming our journey to England where we want to settle,' said one.
     Police said Steenvoorde had been popular with travelling migrants since around 2000 because it was on a main HGV route from the continent to Britain.
     There is a vast lorry car park next to the motorway, where many board lorries making there way to channel ports, mainly Calais and Dunkirk.
[Site link]

Border controls – national security
Web and migration threaten UK, says Reid
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 17 November 2008

     Mass migration and the internet are increasing threats to Britain's national security, according to John Reid, the former home secretary.
     Crises that threatened the nation happened far more than people thought, he added, and were no longer "one-off events".
     The MP for Airdrie and Shotts, who will leave the House of Commons at the next general election, is establishing a research group called the Institute of Security and Resilience Studies to assess the long-term threats against Britain and other countries.
     Mr Reid said international migration had increased the range of threats against Britain since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s.
     "The chief characteristic of the world we have to face is mobility," he said.

Border controls – France, Britain
Police target migrants heading for Britain
Peter Allen
Daily Telegraph, 24 October 2008

     Hundreds of riot police have started an operation to clear illegal camps in Calais used by migrants making for Britain.
     In unprecedented scenes, officers began a "clean-up" operation targeting the estimated 1,000 people who were sleeping rough in the port. Each night, many of them try to smuggle themselves on to lorries heading to Britain.
     The police operation was prompted by an expulsion order issued by the civil court in response to an increase in violence and anti-social behaviour among the migrants. ...
     ... Local police describe drug abuse and theft as "rampant" in the camps. ...
     But Gerard Gavory, the sub-prefect of Calais, who was in charge of the expulsion, said: "The objective was not to arrest these people.
     "Each was able to pick up their belongings and leave on their own accord if they wanted to. But later, we reminded them that there are other solutions to getting shelter." He admitted that while 80 migrants had been taken to a reception centre, most were allowed to return to the streets of Calais.

Border controls
Sham marriages ban is a breach of human rights
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 31 July 2008

     Illegal immigrants could be able to use sham marriages to stay in Britain after a judge decided that Government rules banning the practice were a breach of human rights.
     The ban was brought in by David Blunkett in 2004, during his time as home secretary, amid concerns that thousands of people a year were arranging bogus marriages to give them the right to stay in Britain.
     The regulations required people not legally settled in Britain to seek special permission to marry. However, they were ruled illegal by the High Court in 2006 and the Appeal Court last year.
     Yesterday, the Law Lords agreed, saying they were an "arbitrary and unjust interference" with human rights. ...
     Lord Bingham added that the right to respect for family life under the European Convention gave a measure of protection to some people having limited or no leave to enter or stay in Britain but who married in the country. However, he conceded that this gave "rise to an acute and difficult administrative problem" of people who got married "to strengthen their claims for leave to enter or remain".
     Home Office figures show that the number of suspected sham marriages has fallen from 3,500 in 2004 to 400 last year. ... ...
     The Home Office changed the rules in 2006. Instead of a blanket ban on foreigners who tried to get married three months before they were due to go home, officials must consider the merits of each case.
     • Foreign students who miss more than 10 lectures in a row will be reported to the Government under new plans to crack down on illegal immigration. However, they will be able to avoid the new requirements if they opt to enter Britain as a "student visitor", rather than under a student visa.

Border controls – employment, public opinion
Foreign students to be allowed to stay an extra year
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2008

     Foreign students will be able to work in Britain for an extra year before being sent home, ministers will say today.
     They will also unveil measures to stop bogus colleges, which are used as fronts to allow illegal immigrants to enter the country.
     Students are by far the biggest category for long-term visitors to Britain, with 1.6 million visas handed out in the past five years.
     In 2006, 309,000 foreign students arrived here, up nine per cent in a year, and more than double the number of foreigners who were granted work permits.
     Under the present rules, foreign students can work for 12 months after graduating.
     Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, is expected to say today that this will be increased to two years from 2009 to give foreign students more time to work here legally before going home. ...
     Earlier this year it emerged that immigration officers had been ordered to stop deporting foreign students who overstay their visas.
     A leaked memo suggested they are not regarded as a high enough priority.
     Hundreds of thousands of students, including many who never intended to study in Britain, could be staying illegally. They are effectively being granted an amnesty. ...
     Separately, a survey of voting priorities found that immigration is the biggest factor influencing how people will vote in the next election.
     Thirty per cent ranked immigration as the most important election issue, beating crime, health, the environment and education in a survey of 13,000 people by TNS, a market research company.

Border controls
Blank passports worth £2.5m are snatched in van hijack
Graham Tibbetts
Daily Telegraph, 30 July 2008

     Thousands of passports worth £2.5 million were stolen from an unlocked van when it was hijacked as the driver stopped at a newsagent's shop.
     The Foreign Office admitted it was a "serious breach of security" and said an investigation had begun into the robbery.
     Around 3,000 blank passports and visa stickers – known as vignettes – were stolen on their way from Manchester to RAF Northolt in London from where they were to be sent to British embassies. ... ...
     Det Chief Insp Bill McGreavy, of Greater Manchester Police, said the passports would have been worth £2.5 million on the black market. ...
     Tom Craig, a former Scotland Yard fraud officer, told the BBC's Today programme that there were "desperate people all over the world" willing to pay for British passports.

Border controls
Teenage bride ban to curb forced marriages
Rosa Prince and Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2008

     Teenage brides will be barred from moving to Britain under plans to be announced today to clamp down on forced marriages.
     The age at which young people already based in Britain can sponsor a visa for an overseas spouse is also being raised from 18 to 21.
     Liam Byrne, the Home Office minister, will outline the measures, which are designed to stop young women being pressurised by families into marrying older relatives from overseas so they can obtain citizenship.
     He also wants to stop the practice of teenage girls being sent to Britain, largely from Asia, to be wed to relative strangers.

Border controls
Immigrants at Ostend rise 400pc
Bruno Waterfield
Daily Telegraph, 22 July 2008

     The number of illegal immigrants attempting to enter Britain from the Belgian port of Ostend has increased fourfold in the past year. ...
     Dirk Calemyn, the head of the Belgian police's maritime unit, blamed the Schengen open-borders system being operated by some European Union members for a "bigger influx" of illegal immigrants. "A hard stance against refugees in neighbouring countries has been softened," he said. ...
     The Belgian police have raided a number of Ostend parks and woods in recent days and arrested "a number of refugees" who were disturbing local residents.
     "The raids have possibly caused a peak in the statistics," said Mr Calemyn.

Border controls – employment
Creeping insecurity...
Sunday Telegraph, 20 July 2008
[From the "Portcullis" column]

     More embarrassment for Jacqui Smith in the case of the 8,000-plus illegal workers who were wrongly given jobs as security guards. One, you will recall, even ended up protecting Gordon Brown's car.
     The Home Secretary blamed the Security Industry Authority for not carrying out basic employment checks. But parliamentary written answers now show that 4,911 of the workers supplied bona fide national insurance numbers.
     Since July 2006 everyone given an NI number is meant to have undergone a right-to-work test.

Border controls – crime, criminals
Foreign criminals free to enter UK
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 17 July 2008

     Thousands of foreign criminals could be entering Britain undetected because of a failure to implement checks recommended by the inquiry into the Soham murders.
     A report by Sir Ian Magee, a former senior Whitehall civil servant, disclosed that 9 of the 31 recommendations made after the inquiry into the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were still not in place. They included one for "improvements to checks on overseas workers".
     Sir Ian said a failure to bring this in meant that the Government had no idea how many criminals from other countries could be on the streets.
     He said: "I'm not going to say that there are many people at large. I just don't know." ...
     Sir Ian's report disclosed that the police make just 20 requests to Interpol each day for details about non-EU criminals, compared with more than 20,000 a day by the French. ...
     An 11,000-strong list of terrorist suspects, held by Interpol, was hardly used, while the UK Border Agency did not have a link to Interpol's lost and stolen documents database. France makes more than seven million checks a year.

Border controls – EU, Europe, asylum
Analysis: Sarkozy's list of demands
Alasdair Palmer
Sunday Telegraph, 6 July 2008

     Tomorrow, Mr Sarkozy will propose a new EU "pact" on immigration. Its aim is the "harmonisation of asylum regimes" and the strengthening of EU border controls – while also increasing the number of immigrants permitted to work in the EU because of their useful skills. His aim is a common European asylum system.
     He also wants to outlaw national amnesties for illegal immigrants. France was angered when more than two million illegal immigrants were allowed to stay in Spain and Italy under a series of amnesties between 2003 and 2007.
     Britain says it will never give up its right to determine who can stay within its borders. But it will back measures to curb the flow of illegal immigrants into the EU (...) – for the simple reason that many of them find their way to Britain.

Border controls
Tories plan border force of 30,000
Daily Telegraph, 2 July 2008

     The Conservatives would create a border police force 10 times bigger than one under discussion by Labour ministers, David Cameron said.
     Mr Cameron has given his support to a report by Lord Stevens of Kirkwelpington, who as Sir John Stevens was the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, calling for a new force with sweeping police-style powers to tackle terrorism, organised crime, immigration and smuggling.
     The suggested Border Protection Service would have 30,000 officers and civilians – dwarfing government plans for a 3,000-strong border force.

Border controls
Tories to unveil plan for border police force
James Kirkup
Daily Telegraph, 30 June 2008

     A border police force would be established to patrol all airports, major seaports and the coastline under Tory plans to be announced this week. ...
     The Tories say they want a harder approach to illegal immigration, which has surged in the past decade and has stretched police forces tackling gun crime, drug and people trafficking across Britain.
     The Tories will make their announcement in the wake of a report from HM Inspectorate of Constabulary, which raised fears about the protection of British ports. The HMIC study warns that dozens of small ports and airports have been stripped of Customs officers.
     Targets imposed by central government have forced Customs managers to focus resources on a few large airports and ports, the HMIC found. It also raised concerns that all the Customs' inshore cutters are on loan to other government agencies, and said that even forces in landlocked countries such as Switzerland have larger fleets than Britain.

Border controls
Foreign relative bond plan ditched
Daily Telegraph, 26 June 2008

     Ministers have scrapped plans to force people to pay a cash bond for foreign relatives who visit Britain.
     Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, floated the idea of a "financial security" last December. Yesterday, the Home Office unveiled plans for "sponsored family visitor visas", whereby Britons who sponsor a relative could be sent to jail for up to 14 years, or fined £5,000, if the relative stays in the country too long.

Border controls – police
New police force to protect UK borders
Daily Telegraph, 24 June 2008

     A new 3,000-strong police force dedicated to securing Britain's borders was unveiled yesterday by the Home Secretary.
     Jacqui Smith said that senior officers had proposed a single force, run by its own chief constable, which will include uniformed officers on patrol and Special Branch to fight terrorism.
     The move signals a harder approach to illegal immigration, which has surged in the past decade and has stretched police forces tackling gun crime, drug and people-trafficking across Britain. The force will protect Britain's 71 international and major regional airports, 10,500 miles of coastline and 27 major ports.

Border controls – employment
Migrant plan unveiled as seven escape
Richard Edwards
Daily Telegraph, 20 June 2008

     Jacqui Smith unveiled measures to tackle illegal immigration yesterday as seven people broke out of a detention centre.
     The Home Secretary launched the strategy by joining police carrying out dawn raids in London. ...
     Among the measures, Miss Smith announced that the UK Border Agency would "name and shame" employers who hire illegal immigrants. However, within hours, news had emerged of a security breach at the Campsfield detention centre in Oxfordshire. Three people were still on the run last night.

Border controls – employment
Migrant workers 'find it easy to get British work permit despite controls'
Angela Monaghan
Daily Telegraph, 28 May 2008

     Migrant workers find Britain is still one of the easiest countries in which to obtain a work permit, despite the introduction of a new system designed to tighten UK border controls, new research has found.
     Britain came 16th out of 20 global economies ranked in descending order, with one being the strictest, in a survey by Sarah Buttle Associates (SBA), the business immigration experts. ...
     A new points-based system (PBS) was introduced in February and will be rolled out on a phased basis through the rest of this year and 2009. SBA expects the UK to move up the rankings as the system becomes more established. ...
     Almost 70 companies employing more than a total of two million people took part in the survey.

Border controls
Immigration van 'fleet' just one vehicle
Rosa Prince
Daily Telegraph, 27 May 2008

     Government claims that illegal immigrants would be rounded up in a fleet of vans have been dismissed as "spin" after it emerged that just one "mobile detection unit" is currently in operation.
     In January, Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, announced the radical measure to fight mass illegal immigration, claiming that a "fleet" of mobile detection vans would detain illegal immigrants on the spot when attempts to smuggle them into the country were foiled. The suspects would then be transferred to detention centres.
     However, six months on, Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, has learned that just one unit is currently in operation, in Poole in Dorset. ...
     In March, Mr Byrne said that the enforcement budget for detaining bogus arrivals would be doubled, repeating the promise to send out a "fleet" of mobile detection vans.
     ...

Border controls – numbers
Immigration count 'is not fit for purpose'
James Kirkup
Daily Telegraph, 23 May 2008

     Hundreds of thousands of short-term immigrants are not included in official statistics because the system for counting population changes is "not fit for purpose," a parliamentary inquiry has found.
     The counting system is so unreliable that it is not even possible to know the true population of Britain, MPs will report today.
     The Treasury Sub-Committee warns that the failure to correctly count the number of foreigners coming into Britain is undermining Government policies and putting unfair pressure on many local authorities and taxpayers.
     After taking evidence from officials, council leaders and academics, the MPs identified a fundamental weakness with the International Passenger Survey, the main tool used by the Office of national Statistics (ONS) to measure immigration and emigration.
     The survey, which is based on around 4,000 interviews each year, was designed to monitor tourism and business travel, but it has come to play a central role in immigration policy.
     "It is clear from the evidence we have received that the survey is not fit for this new purpose," the MPs say.
     The ONS is overhauling its collection methods to track the movements of short-term migrants. But the MPs found that there are still major shortcomings, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of people are being omitted.
     The ONS estimated that there were only 43,000 short-term migrants in England and Wales in the year to June 2005, with just 16,000 of these in Greater London. But the MPs point out that other measures of the workforce suggest a much higher number: there were 235,640 new national insurance number registrations in Greater London alone during 2005/06.

Border controls
New rules would have barred 20,000 migrants
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 7 May 2008

     Tougher rules on immigration that would have prevented an estimated 20,000 unskilled workers entering Britain last year were unveiled by the Home Office yesterday.
     The new restrictions form part of the Government's points-based immigration system which is being introduced this year to ensure that only those with skills the country needs are allowed in. They will apply to "skilled" workers from this autumn and follow new rules already announced to apply to "highly skilled" migrants. Those for students will follow later. ...
     Home Office analysis suggested that 12 per cent of non-European migrants who arrived last year under the existing work permit scheme would have been refused – about 8,000 individuals.
     Another 12,000 would have been kept out under tougher rules applied to groups such as sportsmen and sportswomen, performers and charity workers wanting to come to the UK on a temporary basis.

Border controls – police
One in four forces sets free illegal migrants
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 23 April 2008

     One in four police forces is routinely releasing illegal immigrants and telling them to make their own way to the nearest immigration office, figures show. ...
     Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that 10 out of 43 forces in England and Wales do not detain suspects if the Immigration Service is unavailable. Instead, they release them with directions to the nearest immigration office.

Border controls
Bulgaria is 'back door' into Britain for east Europeans
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2008

     More than 1,000 Moldovans, Ukrainians and Russians are applying every month for Bulgarian nationality – prompting claims that many are then heading straight to Britain.
     The news comes after figures showed that the numbers of Bulgarians and Romanians visiting Britain rose by 77 per cent in 12 months.
     They are allowed to visit as many times as they want after their countries joined the European Union in January last year.
     The number who can work here is strictly limited by quotas but the big rise in visitors fuelled suspicions that many were choosing to stay in Britain and work in the black economy.
     Boyko Rashkov, Bulgaria's deputy justice minister, said more than 250 applications for Bulgarian citizenship were being processed by the Ministry of Justice in Sofia each week. ...
     Many of the applicants, who declare that they are of Bulgarian origin, are from Moldova, Ukraine, Macedonia and Russia. There are also a large number of people from Asian countries applying for Bulgarian citizenship. ...
     Mr Rashkov said he needed more staff to cope with a backlog of applications, which has jumped to 61,000.
     "Our staff just cannot deal with all the work", he said. ...
     Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of MigrationWatch UK, said: "It is quite clear that these people seeking Bulgarian citizenship are doing so in order to obtain access to the European labour market.
     "In many cases that market will be Britain since the controls imposed by the Government on Bulgarians and Romanians leak like a sieve."
     Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that 200,000 people from Bulgaria and Romania visited Britain in the year to the end of July 2007, compared with 113,000 visitors in the previous 12 months.

Border controls – employment
Points system for immigration 'will cause chaos'
David Litterick
Daily Telegraph, 7 April 2008

     The Government's new immigration system will result in chaos and leave business facing extra costs, leading lawyers have claimed.
     The Australian-inspired "points system" is intended to make it easier for businesses to hire skilled and qualified workers, but Sarah Linton, a partner at Bryan Cave and head of the firm's employment practice in London, believes the proposals are ill thought out.
     "Far from introducing new controls, much of the responsibility for managing the system will be passed to employers, to be known as sponsors, who face onerous compliance and reporting obligations," she said. ...
     The CBI has broadly supported the new points-based migration system, but has attacked the level of the charges which deputy director-general, John Cridland said could leave smaller business facing an increase of 580pc.

Border controls
Border force can't arrest drug runners in ports
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 1 April 2008

     Officers from the new border force will not be able to arrest people caught in possession of drugs or a gun, it emerged last night.
     Analysis of the legislation governing the force's powers shows that an officer can only detain a suspect for three hours and must then "arrange for a constable to attend as soon as is reasonably practicable". ...
     Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, will unveil the 25,000-strong force on Thursday as part of the new UK Border Agency, signalling a hardening approach to illegal immigration.
     The agency was set up to protect Britain's 71 international and major regional airports, 10,500 miles of coastline and 27 major sea ports.

Border controls – employment
Home Office in illegal immigrants cover-up
David Leppard
Sunday Times, 30 March 2008
[The headline in the newspaper is "Home Office in migrants cover-up"]

     Hundreds of illegal immigrants – including a suspected murderer and other criminals – are working in care homes in Britain, a leaked Home Office report has disclosed.
     In some homes more than half the employees have entered the country illegally and are now being entrusted with caring for old and vulnerable people. The immigration intelligence report found that one illegal worker was a murder suspect from the Philippines and others had been involved in the "abuse and mistreatment" of elderly people.
     The report, which was produced more than two years ago, warned that the problems were "widespread" and "significant". But officials say its findings have been ignored.
     "Very few of these cases are acted on," one official said. "Ministers have turned a blind eye in the obscene interests of costs. These cases are not seen as a priority and most of them simply go to the bottom of the pile." ...
     The 22-page intelligence report examined 110 investigations into the employment of suspected illegal immigrants in care homes in the south and southwest of England.
     The situation was so bad, the report notes, that "there is potential for embarrassment if the immigration service is not seen to be actively addressing this issue". Many of the illegal workers were using false names and forged identity documents to bypass police criminal records checks. The suspected Filipino murderer had used fraudulent references to get a job at a care home in Plymouth.
     The report discloses that Home Office ministers had failed to tackle the problem because most of the illegal care home workers were from countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria and South Africa, which were not on the priority list identifying those who should be targeted.
     This restriction "does not allow the immigration service to take any form of action", it says. Offenders are rarely brought to court because of a lack of resources. "There is no deterrent factor for those involved in these activities," the report states. ...
     The report, which has been leaked by Whitehall officials exasperated that little has been done about the problem, reveals:
     – that 58 of 113 employees of a firm running two homes in Hampshire and Wiltshire were suspected illegal offenders;
     – that 36 of 58 people at a Southampton care agency were working illegally, mostly using fake identity papers;
     – and that 22 of 55 foreign nationals who applied for employment through a Salisbury agency were immigration offenders
     The document says the proliferation of untrained and unqualified illegal migrants, many with unknown backgrounds, poses a direct risk to some of the estimated 480,000 elderly and vulnerable people in the 21,000 care homes in England and Wales.
[Site link]

Border controls – marriage visas
Thousands 'are given marriage visas without proper checks'
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 26 March 2008

     Thousands of foreign spouses are being granted marriage visas to Britain without their stories being checked out properly, it emerged yesterday.
     MPs were astonished to discover that interviews are not routinely conducted with British fiancés, fiancées, wives or husbands to ensure that the marriage is legitimate and not forced.
     Meg Munn, the Home Office minister, said the volume of applications made interviews impractical.
     Each year, more than 40,000 marriage visas are granted and there is concern that many are intended to get around immigration rules.
     Last year, 17,000 marriage visas were issued for spouses from the Indian sub-continent.
     The Commons home affairs select committee is investigating the extent to which British girls are being forced into marriage. Although applicants for visas face rigorous checks, including interviews, the same is not true for the British sponsor.
     Documents, such as passports and birth certificates, are checked to verify their identities, but they are not seen by officials. Mark Sedwill, the head of UK visas, told the committee that there would only be an interview if there was a suspicion that the marriage was forced. ...
     Bob Russell, the Liberal Democrat MP for Colchester, accused the Government of complacency.
     He said interviews could help detect whether a marriage was forced or genuine and should at least be carried out on applicants from the Indian sub-continent.

Border controls
Migrants given rail tickets and told to travel to Croydon
Sophie Borland
Daily Telegraph, 11 March 2008

     Nine illegal immigrants disappeared after they were given free train tickets by police and told to make their own way to a detention centre more than 60 miles away. ...
     Cambridgeshire police say they were acting under instruction from officials at the Border and Immigration Agency, a Home Office department.
     But officials at the agency denied such guidance was issued and insisted they had asked for the nine to be held in custody so that they could be interviewed.

Border controls
Poor fences at Calais 'let 1,500 a year into Britain'
Stephen Adams
Daily Telegraph, 5 March 2008

     Up to 1,500 illegal immigrants a year are entering Britain because of poor fencing at Calais, a Lords committee has found.
     High-tech scanners are being bypassed by "determined" immigrants, the committee found. The immigrants are climbing over fences to sneak aboard lorries after the vehicles have been checked. ...
     The peers made their discovery during a visit to Calais and other ports to investigate the state of Britain's borders. ...
     The report said the poor fencing was the "one weak point in an otherwise excellent system". ...
     A spokesman for the Border and Immigration Agency defended its record and said it was not "complacent": "Our borders are some of the toughest in the world. Last year we searched over one million lorries and prevented a record 18,000 attempts by illegal immigrants to cross the channel."

Border controls
Border force 'to close at weekends'
Daily Telegraph, 3 March 2008

     Fears were raised last night that the Government could be opening the door to terrorists and illegal immigrants after it emerged that border officials may not be able to arrest foreign criminals at weekends.
     The new Border and Immigration Agency has been told to keep a skeleton staff on duty at the weekend and on bank holidays, under plans which come into force on April 1.

Border controls
Britain has lost control of borders, says judge
Daily Telegraph, 23 February 2008

     A judge yesterday bemoaned Britain's loss of border controls "for the first time since 1066" and the deportation centres set up to cope with the result.
     He said he could not help but have "sympathy" for detainees held in the "limbo of boredom and uncertainty" offered by such places.
     Judge Christopher Elwen's comments came after he cleared four foreign nationals of orchestrating a multi-million-pound "rampage" in a detention centre. ...
     Passing sentence, the judge said: "In the last few years this country, perhaps for the first time since 1066, lost control of its borders and one of the unfortunate consequences of this has been the existence of detention centres such as Harmondsworth.
     "One cannot but have sympathy for the hundreds of detainees who have been held in such places in a limbo of boredom and uncertainty while the administrative procedures grind on." However, he said everyone in this country "enjoys the protection of the law and in return must obey it".

Border controls
MP to oppose plan to abolish Commonwealth visa privilege
Daily Telegraph, 22 February 2008

     Britain is proposing to sever its historic ties to tens of thousands of Commonwealth nationals who have an automatic right through descent to live and work here.
     This week's Home Office Green Paper charting new pathways to citizenship suggests the ancestry visa might be abolished.
     The visa enables people aged 17 or over whose grandparents were born in the UK to come for four years and eventually apply to stay. Those entering under the ancestry route have free access to the labour market. ...
     In a letter to The Daily Telegraph today, Austin Mitchell, the MP for Great Grimsby, says the plan shows a "contempt for the historic associations between Britain, New Zealand and Australia".

Border controls – security
Government accused of cover-up after illegal immigrant caught in Commons
Melissa Kite
Sunday Telegraph, 10 February 2008

     An illegal immigrant was able to work at the House of Commons using a fake identity pass in a serious breach of security.
     The Government stands accused of a cover-up after leaked documents, ..., showed that Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, was informed immediately of the case of the Brazilian woman, a cleaner, when she was arrested at Parliament 10 days ago. Yet the Home Office confirmed the security breach – one of the most serious to affect Westminster – only after being contacted by this newspaper last night.
     A letter marked "restricted" and "urgent" was sent to Mr Byrne and Lin Homer, who heads the Border and Immigration Agency, on January 31, warning them that a woman who had absconded from Heathrow airport three years earlier had been arrested at Westminster that day.
     Elaine Chaves Aparecida was detained by police after a random check on her security pass showed that it belonged to someone else. She had been working there, since December 3 last year as the employee of a cleaning company, Emprise Services.
     Under questioning, Miss Chaves, 31, admitted that she had run away from immigration officials at Heathrow Terminal 4 in December 2004 before she could be refused entry.

Border controls
Laura Clout and Richard Edwards
Daily Telegraph, 9 February 2008

     Last week, Tony Smith, the regional director of the Border and Immigration Agency, said 13,000 illegal immigrants were caught every year concealed in lorries at major ports, particularly from Calais.

Border controls – deportation
Compulsory ID cards for migrants
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2008

     Compulsory identity cards will be introduced for all non-European Union migrants this year, Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said yesterday. ...
     Mr Byrne said he had set a target of introducing the cards for foreign immigrants by the beginning of November.
     Speaking to council chiefs in London, Mr Byrne said that newcomers would be held to account if they broke the rules "whether that is overstaying their visa or breaking the law".
     He added: "That means automatic deportation for those who commit a serious offence.
     "This year we will deport more foreign prisoners than last year – and I am afraid we will build more detention centres to increase the numbers we remove."

Border controls
French block X-ray search for stowaways
Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2008

     France will not let British border guards in Calais use X-rays to search for illegal immigrants in lorries unless they get written permission from the stowaways.
     French border police have outlawed the use of the scanners, claiming that they could violate European health and safety laws.
     British immigration officials have been told that if they want to use the machines they must clear it with those they are trying to find – an almost impossible solution.

Border controls
Treaty 'will shift power to Europe'
Toby Helm and Bruno Waterfield
Daily Telegraph, 21 January 2008

     The EU Reform Treaty backed by Gordon Brown paves the way for "a massive and fundamental" shift of power to Europe, a senior Labour MP charged by Parliament with assessing its impact will tell the Commons today.
     The comments from Michael Connarty, the pro-European chairman of the all-party European Scrutiny Committee, will mark an explosive start to five weeks of Parliamentary debate on the Treaty – and stoke the growing clamour for a referendum. ...
     Mr Connarty backs the new treaty because he wants a stronger Europe but said he had decided to speak out because the British and other governments had not told the people of Europe the truth.
     On criminal law, immigration and border controls, the treaty had set up mechanisms for national vetoes to be steadily eroded and authority transferred from British ministers and UK courts to Europe.

Border controls
Rich migrants avoid the English test
Rosa Prince
Daily Telegraph, 18 January 2008

     Wealthy foreign businessmen will be exempt from new requirements to learn English before moving to Britain if they can prove they have at least £1 million in the bank.
     The proposal is part of the Government's new points-based scheme for gaining residency, designed to encourage greater integration into British culture by immigrants.
     However, the very rich, such as Russian oil billionaires, will not need to pass strict language tests under a quota system, as long as they can prove they have £1 million in a "regulated financial institution and disposable in the UK".
     The new system for highly skilled workers, which comes into force in less than three months, also requires millionaire businessmen and women to invest £750,000 within three months of their entry into Britain.

Border controls
Fingerprint plan for migrants
Daily Telegraph, 14 January 2008

     Migrants entering Britain on visas will have their fingerprints taken, the Government will announce today.
     The checks will be used to screen out criminals or those likely to outstay their visas and will apply to three quarters of the world's population. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is to unveil the scheme today as part of plans to reduce illegal immigration and identity fraud.

Border controls – Europe
Asylum seekers sweep across EU after border control ends
Michael Leidig
Sunday Telegraph, 6 January 2008

     Thousands of asylum seekers are on the move across Europe as a result of the relaxation of internal border controls.
     A new system intended to make it easier for European Union citizens to move between member countries has led to a dramatic rise in illegal immigrants.
     At the Traiskirchen refugee camp in Austria, numbers have more than doubled, from 300 to 770, since the rules were changed just before Christmas. ...
     Almost 2,000 soldiers still patrol Austria's borders, but they are powerless to check the passports of new arrivals. ...
     German police, who opposed the opening of the borders, have also reported a sharp increase in the number of illegal migrants entering the country.

Border controls – Europe
Police warning as politicians hail end to borders
Harry de Quetteville
Daily Telegraph, 21 December 2007

     European leaders will take down border posts across the continent today, as the passport-free Schengen zone is extended to nine former Eastern bloc countries.
     But while politicians have begun three days of celebrations, police forces have given warning that the move will hamper the fight against terrorism, organised crime and illegal immigration. ...
     The prospect has caused uproar among German police on their country's border with Poland at Frankfurt Oder, which until now has marked the outer limit of the Schengen zone.
     They fear that Poland's security forces will be overwhelmed by the new arrangement.
     "The Poles are doing their best, but the task is impossible," said Lars Wendland, a spokesman for a union of border police at Frankfurt Oder. ...
     The joint concerns of the German and Polish police forces are reinforced by worries over the Schengen II computer system, which is intended to provide detailed information on those crossing the border to member police forces.
     "We were promised by the EU that we would only open borders if the Schengen II database had been established," said Mr Wendland. "But it's not running yet."

Border controls – Europe
On EU's new border, illegal immigrants 'are coming and coming and coming'
Gethin Chamberlain
Sunday Telegraph, 16 December 2007

     Just one porous border will stand between most of Europe and tens of thousands of illegal immigrants under changes that take effect on Friday.
     Hungary and Poland are among nine recent additions to the European Union who will join most other members in throwing open their EU frontiers to travel without a passport. ...
     Border officials have already reported an upsurge in people trying to cross the EU's new outer frontier. Britain has not signed up to the Schengen zone, but many of those heading for the eastern frontier say they want to cross the Channel. ...
     On its visit to the border between Hungary and the Ukraine, The Sunday Telegraph found evidence of serious weaknesses in controls over immigrants from outside the EU. Officials said that they caught fewer than a third of those attempting to cross illegally.
     

Border controls – terrorism
Too many loopholes in Britain's border security for terrorists
Steve Farrow
Daily Telegraph, 12 July 2007
[Letter to the Editor]

     As an ex-entry clearance officer who worked in the High Commission's visa section in Islamabad for two years, I worked closely with representatives from bona fide colleges and universities from Britain. Most of them complained of the large numbers of overseas students, particularly from Pakistan, who failed to show up for their courses.
     The Home Office proposal of closing one loophole by demanding that foreign students have a "sponsor" is risible. The majority of student visa applications that we processed in Islamabad had some form of bogus documentation supporting the application, much of which we were unable to verify due to work constraints. This "loophole closure" will not in any way stop the abuse.
     The 379 Pakistani students who failed to show up at Portsmouth University is only the tip of the iceberg and we are now beginning to pay the price for the Government's immigration policy.

Border controls
Uniforms for passport teams 'will deter illegals'
George Jones
Daily Telegraph, 24 July 2006

     Uniformed border control officers are to be introduced at ports and airports, John Reid, the Home Secretary, announced yesterday.
     In addition, the budget for immigration enforcement will double to £280 million by the end of 2010 to try to clamp down on illegal immigrants.

Border controls – asylum
A return to the days of tougher border controls
Philip Johnston
Daily Telegraph, 20 July 2006

     People leaving the country are to be counted out at the borders for the first time since embarkation controls were abolished in 1998. ...
     Further details will be announced within days.
     The move comes after the Home Office acknowledged that it had up to 450,000 outstanding case files for asylum seekers.
     While some of these may be for people who are now EU citizens, or who have died or returned home, it represents far more than an estimate of 283,000 produced by the National Audit Office last year, which ministers insisted at the time was 50,000 too high.
     In his reform package yesterday, John Reid, the Home Secretary, said this backlog would be sorted out "within five years". However, he admitted this was not a guarantee that everyone turned down for asylum would be removed from the country.
     Port controls started to be dismantled under the Tories in 1994. The remaining checks were removed under Labour in 1997.
     Since then, it has no longer been a requirement to show a passport on leaving the country, though selective checks still occur and airlines carry out their own.
     The loosening of border controls, which saved an estimated £3 million a year, cut off a valuable source of intelligence for police and the security services in the investigation of terrorism.

CITIZENSHIP

Citizenship – alienation
British youths most alienated in Europe
Daily Telegraph, 24 January 2009

     British youths feel more alienated than those in any other European country, a survey has found. Interviews with more than 40,000 Europeans found that British 16- to 24-year-olds had the lowest levels of trust and belonging. Overall, Britain came 13th out of 22 countries in the New Economics Foundation's survey. Denmark topped the happiness league.

Citizenship – immigration
Passports for '275,000 migrants every year'
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 15 January 2009

     Up to 275,000 passports could be handed out to foreigners every year under new rules on "earning" citizenship to be published today.
     Migrants looking to settle in Britain will be expected to apply for citizenship rather than staying "in limbo" on some form of leave to remain. Tens of thousands will be "fast tracked" to settlement each year if they carry out voluntary or community work, under the Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill.
     "Earned citizenship" will even allow some foreign criminals to be given a British passport and full access to benefits within a decade of arriving.
     Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has signalled that she wants every migrant looking to settle to apply for citizenship.
     Currently, officials say, only 60 per cent of people given the right to remain permanently apply for citizenship.
     More than 164,000 people were granted citizenship in 2007. Had all applied, that could have meant 275,000 new citizens.
     At present, anyone who has been in Britain for five years can apply to settle permanently but, under the new rules, they will then enter a probationary period.
     Those carrying out voluntary work such as fund-raising or running children's sports clubs could earn citizenship just a year later.
     Others may have to wait three years, but even criminals will get a passport after five, providing their offence was no liable to jail or deportation. The Bill will also include a levy on visa fees, intended to contribute towards schools, hospitals and other services migrants will use. First announced last year, it is expected to come into force from April, and to be up to £20.

Citizenship – nationality, naturalisation
Citizenship
Daily Telegraph, 4 December 2008

     Immigrants will have to "earn their right to stay" in Britain under planned new laws. Applications for citizenship will be set back if the applicant commits crimes or fails to learn English, as part of what ministers say will be a "firm but fair" immigration system. A Borders, Immigration and Citizenship Bill will alter rules on granting British nationality. The centrepiece will be measures to establish a formal "path to citizenship".
     Progress will be slowed if migrants don't make an effort to integrate or if they commit even minor crimes, the Home Office said. The rules could also fast-track applications for some would-be citizens.
     At the moment, there is a standard five-year qualifying period for naturalization.

CRIME

Crime – policing
Stop-and-search cuts knife crime
Daily Telegraph, 19 May 2009

     Serious knife crime and teenage killings in London dropped significantly after police almost doubled the number of stop and search operations.
     The Metropolitan Police said that violence with knives was down by a third and the number of teenage murders had almost halved compared with last year.
     Officers have searched 24,000 young people every month and arrested 10,266 people, 90 per cent of whom were charged.

Crime – racism, USA
Face facts on frisks
Heather Mac Donald
New York Post, 19 May 2009

     The New York Civil Liberties Union last week lodged another "racial-profiling" complaint about the NYPD, pointing to statistics for the first three months of 2009: 52 percent of all people stopped for questioning by the police were black, whereas 9 percent were white.
     It would be illuminating if the NYCLU suggested what the proper percentage of stops should be for the various racial and ethnic groups. Doing so might force it to acknowledge the following facts about crime in New York: Blacks commit about 68 percent of all violent crime in the city, according to police records, though they are just 24 percent of the city's population.
     That crime number comes from victims and witnesses when they report attacks to the police. According to data from victims and witnesses, blacks commit about 82 percent of all shootings and 72 percent of all robberies. Whites commit about 5 percent of all violent crimes, though they make up 35 percent of the city's population, and commit 1 percent of shootings and about 4 percent of robberies.
     Now, given these crime rates, whom exactly does the NYCLU think the NYPD should be stopping? Police enforcement activity can reflect criminal behavior or population ratios – not both.
     If stop-and-frisks mirrored the city's racial, rather than crime, demographics, as the NYCLU seems to think they should, the police would be ignoring where crime is actually occurring and who its victims and perpetrators are. Recall that victims and witnesses report in 1 percent of all shootings in the city that the perpetrator was white. ...
     The same proportion of stops of blacks and whites – 12 percent – results in a summons or an arrest, suggesting that the police use the same behavioral factors in deciding whom to stop. ...
     Just because a stop doesn't yield evidence of a crime, however, doesn't mean that it was unjustified. A high percentage of stops are made because the suspect appeared to be casing a victim or property or acting as a lookout. The officer's surmise may well have been correct, and the stop effective in breaking up criminal activity, without the stop producing grounds for arrest. Even if the subject is innocent, his actions and their context could have properly raised the officer's suspicions. ...
     Here's a suggestion for the NYCLU: If you want to lower the rate of police activity in black neighborhoods, put some effort into lowering the crime rate. Attacking the police for fighting crime is a dangerous distraction.
[Site link]

Crime – education
Foreign students 'use fake results'
Graeme Paton
Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2009

     Foreign students are being admitted to British universities with bogus qualifications, the higher education watchdog has been told.
     Lecturers said they uncovered evidence of students getting places on the basis of "forged or false" certificates.
     Some claimed their suspicions were only aroused when undergraduates and postgraduates from overseas struggled to cope with course demands.
     When challenged by university officials, many students implicated "agents" peddling bogus qualifications in their home countries.
     The disclosure is made in a report by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, which vets standards at British universities.

Crime
Crime is costing us £3,000 a year each
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2009

     Crime costs every household £3,000 a year, with worse to come during the recession, a study has found.
     A decade of unprecedented spending on law enforcement has failed to stop Britain having one of the highest crime rates in Europe, according to Policy Exchange, a centre-Right think tank.
     It is estimated that, since 2005, an additional 100,000 children a year have been punished for new crimes, with robberies, drug offences and criminal damage among youngsters all rising sharply. ...
     The report, Less Crime, Lower Cost, estimates that crime costs Britain more than £78 billion a year, ... ...
     In the past decade, the number of children appearing in court for robbery alone has increased by 76 per cent.

Crime – policing
Officers stripped of stop and search terror powers over fears of angering Muslims
Daily Mail, 8 May 2009

     Scotland Yard is scaling down its use of controversial powers which allow officers to stop and search people without reasonable grounds for suspicion.
     Stung by criticism that the practice has alienated ethnic minorities, the Metropolitan Police is changing its policy on when Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 can be employed.
     In future its use will be restricted to policing 'iconic' or strategically important sites, such as Buckingham Palace and Parliament, and to specific operations.
     In other cases officers will be told to use Section 43 of the Act, which requires them to have reasonable suspicion that the person they are stopping is a terrorist.
     The Met increased its use of the Section 44 powers following the car bomb attacks on a nightclub in Haymarket, Central London, and Glasgow Airport in June 2007.
     Since October of that year the force has carried out 154,293 stop and searches.
     But Government figures released last week showed that black and Asian people were targeted disproportionately.
     Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who took over as the force's anti-terror chief last month, highlighted the concerns in a recent report to the Met Police Authority.
     He wrote: 'The power is seen as controversial and has the potential to have a negative impact, particularly on minority communities.'
[Site link]

Crime – police
Blacks bear brunt of rise in stop and search
Richard Ford and Sean O'Neill
The Times, 1 May 2009

     Black people are almost eight times as likely as whites to be stopped and searched a decade after the Stephen Lawrence inquiry branded the police "institutionally racist".
     Use of ordinary stop and search tactics in England and Wales rose sharply to more than one million in 2007-08, the highest figure since 1998.
     The rise has had a disproportionate impact on ethnic minorities. When Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993 black people were six times as likely to be stopped and searched as whites. By 2006/7, that had risen to seven times.
     Figures published by the Ministry of Justice yesterday for stops and searches in 2007/08 under Section 44 counter-terror laws were even starker. The number of people stopped and searched tripled in a year to 117,000 but fewer than 1 per cent were arrested for alleged terrorism-related offences.
     There was a 322 per cent rise in black people stopped and searched, 277 per cent in Asians and 185 per cent in white people under anti-terror laws.
     Civil liberty campaigners and politicians accused police of heavy-handedness and said that vastly increased use of their powers threatened to alienate large sections of the community.
     Cindy Butts, who is leading the Metropolitan Police Authority's race and faith inquiry, said that she was concerned about the "huge disproportionality" revealed by the figures. ...
     The official figures on race and the criminal justice system revealed increases in police stops and searches in relation to both ordinary and terrorist crimes. Black people were nearly eight times as likely to be stopped and searched per head of population as whites. Asians were twice as likely to be searched.
     Nearly 90 per cent of the searches under counter-terror powers were carried out in London by the Metropolitan Police. Vernon Coaker, the Police Minister, said that the increase in anti-terror stops and searches was in part linked to the failed bombings in Haymarket. London, in 2007.
[Site link]

Crime – border security, abuse of visas
Former Apprentice star Saira Khan: 'Why I shopped my cousin to MI5'
Saira Khan
Daily Mail, 25 April 2009

     A joyous reunion after two years, which was how long it had been since my husband Steve Hyde and I had seen my cousin Kamran Mumumtaz on a visit to his village in the Pakistan region of Azad Kashmir.
     Kamran's arrival for a six-month holiday in Britain ... ...
     It has not only caused a huge family rift, but has also opened my eyes to some of the darker practices among some people in my community.
     I am referring, in particular, to the widespread belief that it is entirely acceptable to use travel and study visas to circumvent normal immigration rules.
     Fifteen days after he had landed, Kamran packed his bags ... and disappeared. ...
     Like many before him – it is impossible to say how many because no official records are kept of those who abscond – he has been absorbed and is being protected by a community that is as colossal as it is impenetrable.
     The Government has estimated that there are up to 570,000 illegal immigrants in Britain, but with so many visas being applied for with malicious intent, that figure could run to millions. Not that there is any attempt by the Government to chase it down.
     Although there are no official figures for the number of overstayers from Pakistan, or from anywhere else for that matter, there is enough anecdotal evidence to show that it is a growing problem. In 2007, at Portsmouth University alone, 379 students from Pakistan were unaccounted for when their visas expired. ...
     Immigration Minister Phil Woolas has admitted that the student visa system is 'the major loophole in Britain's border controls', but I think the entire visa system is one big loophole.
     And that is largely because I've discovered, to my disgust, that there is no system in place to monitor those who fail to go home when their visas expire.
     In any case, those who do get caught simply apply for asylum. And the bureaucratic process to deport them is then so drawn out, they invariably end up staying.
     I grew up in Nottingham in a very tight-knit Asian community and regard myself as a moderate Muslim.
     Although I have since integrated into British society, I've maintained my contact with this community through family and friends. I am appalled to learn the extent to which they think it's OK to bend or break immigration laws. ...
     Our initial application in March last year was declined because the authorities, rightly as it turned out, suspected that Kamran would not go back. ...
     His uncle from Hounslow, who is a taxi driver, came to visit one night. By then I had learned that the uncle had gained his visa to get into this country by marrying a British girl of Pakistani origin. That's another route many Pakistanis use to get here. ...
     I am writing this article because I have no confidence that the authorities will do anything. ...
     Most Pakistanis talk about blood and clan loyalty. They have no respect for British laws – unless it suits them. ...
     The systematic breaking of our immigration laws is a dirty little secret for many of Britain's minority communities.
[Site link]

Crime – USA
America's Most Dangerous Cities
Zack O'Malley Greenburg
Forbes, 24 April 2009

     In March 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick was charged with eight felonies, including perjury and obstruction of justice. In August, he violated his bail agreement and was thrown in jail. His actions were deplorable for anybody, but Kilpatrick was no Average Joe – he was the mayor of Detroit.
     Unfortunately for the Motor City, Kilpatrick, 38, is just one ripple in the area's sea of crime. Detroit is the worst offender on our list of America's most dangerous cities, thanks to a staggering rate of 1,220 violent crimes committed per 100,000 people. ...
     To determine our list, we used violent crime statistics from the FBI's latest uniform crime report, issued in 2008. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. We evaluated U.S. metropolitan statistical areas – geographic entities defined by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics – with more than 500,000 residents.
     Though nationwide crime was down 3.5% year over year in the first six months of 2008, the cities atop our list illustrate a disturbing trend: All 10 of the most dangerous cities were among those identified by the Department of Justice as transit points for Mexican drug cartels.
[Site link]

Crime – multiculturalism, USA
Why has child molestation committed by illegal aliens become an epidemic?
Dave Gibson
Examiner.com, 21 April 2009

     Contrary to what President Bush often claimed, family values do stop at the Rio Grande for many illegal aliens. In addition to suppressing wages, bankrupting our hospitals, and over-crowding our jails and public schools, illegal aliens are preying upon our children. ...
     In fact, a study conducted by the Violent Crimes Institute reports that between 1999 and 2006, there were nearly 1,000,000 sex crimes committed in the United States by illegal aliens.
     Using U.S. Department of Justice, Immigration, as well as state and local law enforcement data, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute determined that there are no less than 240,000 illegal alien sex offenders currently inside the U.S. ...
     So why does the crime of child molestation seem to be so prevalent among illegal aliens from Mexico? – The answer may lie within the age-old Mexican culture of "machismo," as well as within the actual laws of that country.
     The crime of rape or child molestation is incredibly under-reported in Mexico, because there is so much shame placed upon the victim as well as the difficulty in proving the case. A 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post article, reporter Mary Jordan detailed the case of a 16 year old Mexican girl who had reported being raped by three policemen in 1997. When Yessica Yadira Diaz Cazares and her mother went to the police station to report the rape, she was laughed at by the officers and actually jailed overnight. ...
     After Yessica's death, the national human rights commission pursued the case, resulting in the conviction of two of the accused officers.
     The crime of kidnapping a woman for the purpose of rape and marriage against their will, or "rapto" as it is known in Mexico is actually a minor crime and rarely ever prosecuted. A Mexican legislator actually called the practice "romantic." Of course, this crime if committed in the United States would elicit felony charges and a penalty of 20 years to life in prison.
     While rape is a serious crime in the United States, many Mexican nationals cannot understand why they are prosecuted on this side of the border. Often, a small payment of $10 to $20 to the victim's family will settle the matter back in Mexico.
     The most troubling and telling reason behind the growing epidemic of child molestation at the hands of Mexican illegal aliens, is the fact the age of sexual consent throughout the majority of Mexico is 12 years of age!
     The only other nation in the world which boasts such a disregard for childhood innocence is Zimbabwe, where the age of consent is also 12. ...
     In order to bring charges of rape in most Mexican states, the law requires that the girl prove that she is a virgin, and that the charge of statutory rape be dropped if the rapist wishes to marry his victim.
     Of course, when discussing the issue of illegal immigration, this dirty little secret is never talked about by our politicians, nor is the impact that such an attitude towards the abuse of children could have on this nation by offering amnesty to millions of Mexican nationals.
[Site link]

Crime – Norway
Immigrants behind most cases of aggravated sexual assault
Rolleiv Solholm
The Norway Post, 17 April 2009

     The Oslo Police have over the past three years investigated 41 cases of aggravated sexual assault, which resulted in rape. All of them were carried out by non-western immigrants to Norway.
     The police now urge that more efforts be put into preventive measures among men with immigrant background.
     The police have investigated all reported cases of aggravated sexual assault over the past three years, and have gained a clear impression of the offenders:
     Most of the rapists have a Kurdish or African background, NRK reports. The cases of aggravated sexual assaults all have one thing in common, namely the use of gross violence.
[Site link]

Crime – Norway
30,000 asylum seekers arrive without passports
Rolleiv Solholm
The Norway Post, 17 April 2009

     33,000 asylum seekers have arrived in Norway without a passport or ID documents since 2005, and most of them are still in Norway, according to Aftenposten. The Aliens Office (UDI) will now refuse them work permit.
     According to the police, there are several reasons why a large number of asylum seekers dispose of their ID documents.
     One is that many fear that it may be revealed that they have earlier applied for asylum in other countries.
     Earlier this year, the Department of Labour instructed the UDI to refuse work permit to asylum seekers without ID documents.
[Site link]

Crime – USA, illegal immigrants
Mexicans total 32% of immigrants
Jennifer Harper
Washington Times, 17 April 2009

     A record 12.7 million Mexican immigrants lived in the U.S. in 2008, a 17-fold increase since 1970, according to a study released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
     "About 11 percent of everyone born in Mexico is currently living in the U.S.," the study said.
     Mexicans now account for 32 percent of all immigrants living in this country - which continues to be a haven for the world's tired, huddled masses.
     "No other country in the world has as many total immigrants from all countries as the United States has immigrants from Mexico alone. Other than the United States, the country that hosts the largest number of immigrants is Russia, with 12 million foreign born," the study said.
     The majority of Mexican citizens in the U.S. - 55 percent - are here illegally. And Mexicans comprise a majority (59 percent) of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants now within our borders. ...
     And while they can be found in all 50 states, California, Texas, New York and Florida are still the top destinations. Less likely spots such as New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Idaho and Missouri now hold from 25,000 to 45,000 illegal immigrants each.
[Site link]

Crime – USA
Illegal immigrants cashing in on federal tax credits, study shows.
Kevin Mooney
Washington Examiner, 16 April 2009

     Large numbers of illegal immigrants file tax returns using phony Social Security numbers to cash in on the federal Earned Income Tax Credit, thanks to lax government management, according to the author of a new study.
     "Technically, only people authorized to work in the U.S. are eligible for the credit, you need a valid Social security number," said Ed Rubenstein, a financial analyst and economist, speaking at a news conference Tuesday at the National Press Club.
     "But identity theft, stolen Social Security numbers, and other scams effectively nullify the restriction. As a result, illegal aliens actually receive the EITC at even greater rates than legal immigrants," Rubenstein said.
     The IRS makes little or no effort to verify the authenticity of Social Security numbers, or existence of dependant children, Rubenstein said.
     This makes it possible for illegal immigrants to claim children still living in Mexico as dependents and for parents living illegally in the U.S. to file separate returns claiming the same children as dependents under the EITC, Rubenstein said.
     The EITC was created to boost work incentives for poor families with children. Childless households received a maximum $438 payment in 2008, while the maximum available to families with two or more children was $4,824.
     "From a distance, the EITC looks like a winner," he said. "The devil is in the details. For starters, the program is dominated by fraud."
     Illegal immigrant households are more than three times as likely to receive EITC than native-born American households,
     Rubenstein said. Higher fertility rates evident among the immigrant population accounts for this disparity, he said.
     "Even a tiny increase in the fertility rates, if maintained over the decades, will have enormous consequences," Rubenstein said. "The role of EITC in the nation's demographic destiny cannot be denied."
     Rubenstein also cited figures from the General Accounting Office (GAO) showing that as many as a third of all EITC claims are "improperly paid."
[Site link]

Crime – illegal immigrants
Boris Johnson's backing boosts illegal immigrant amnesty campaign
Hélène Mulholland
The Guardian, 15 April 2009

     A London rally demanding an amnesty for illegal immigrants living in the UK will be staged during May bank holiday after receiving backing from Boris Johnson.
     Strangers into Citizens, a three-year national campaign by an umbrella group of civic bodies, has seized on the Tory London mayor's support for an "earned amnesty" for illegal immigrants who have been living in the city for several years.
     A spokeswoman for the campaign said Johnson was not expected to attend the event, which will take place in Trafalgar Square, but added that his support for the cause had helped raise its public profile.
     The broad-based campaign is being staged by the country's largest alliance of civic institutions, the Citizen Organising Foundation, which includes London Citizens and Birmingham Citizens.
     The spokeswoman said the decision to stage a rally had been triggered by concern that the recent rows over "British jobs for British workers" and the recession had left migrants particularly vulnerable.
     "People who are already vulnerable to exploitation might more vulnerable," she added.
     Johnson first voiced his support for the idea of an earned amnesty during the mayoral election last April, despite opposition from both the Labour government and the Conservative party.
     The mayor commissioned a study, conducted by the London School of Economics earlier this year.
     Its interim findings suggested that the number of "irregular residents" and their children in Britain at the end of 2007 was in the range of 525,000 to 950,000, with a central estimate of 725,000.
     This compared with a Home Office estimate, based on the 2001 census, of between 310,000 and 570,000, with a central estimate of 430,000.
     The study said there were a further 175,000 "quasi-legal" migrants whose right to remain depended on the future determination of their migration status.
     The LSE research found that between 57% and 75% of irregular residents in Britain live in London.
     Johnson has argued that an earned amnesty in the capital would allow people currently in the city illegally to integrate and contribute more fully to society.
     The Strangers into Citizens campaign wants immigrants across the UK who have been in the country for four or more years to be admitted to a two-year pathway to full legal rights – "leave to remain" – during which they would work legally and demonstrate their contribution to UK economy and society.
     After that two-year period, subject to knowledge of English and employer and community references, they would be granted permanent leave to remain.
[Site link]

Crime – USA, illegal immigrants
A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States
Jeffrey S. Passel and D'Vera Cohn
Pew Hispanic Center, 14 April 2009

     Unauthorized immigrants living in the United States are more geographically dispersed than in the past and are more likely than either U.S. born residents or legal immigrants to live in a household with a spouse and children. In addition, a growing share of the children of unauthorized immigrant parents – 73% – were born in this country and are U.S. citizens.
     These are among the key findings of a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center, a project of the Pew Research Center, ... A 2008 report by the Center estimated that 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants lived in the United States; it concluded that the undocumented immigrant population grew rapidly from 1990 to 2006 but has since stabilized. In this new analysis, the Center estimates that the rapid growth of unauthorized immigrant workers also has halted; it finds that there were 8.3 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. labor force in March 2008.
     Based on March 2008 data collected by the Census Bureau, the Center estimates that unauthorized immigrants are 4% of the nation's population and account for 5.4% of its workforce. Their children, both those who are unauthorized immigrants themselves and those who are U.S. citizens, make up 6.8% of the students enrolled in the nation's elementary and secondary schools.
     About three-quarters (76%) of the nation's unauthorized immigrants are Hispanic. The majority of undocumented immigrants (59%) are from Mexico. Significant regional sources of unauthorized immigrants include Asia (11%), Central America (11%), South America (7%), the Caribbean (4%) and the Middle East (less than 2%).
[Site link]

Crime – multiculturalism
Asian men in burkhas rob jewellers
Gerry Braiden
The Herald, 6 April 2009

     Two Asian men wearing traditional female Muslim dress and carrying handbags have robbed a jewellery shop in a possible copycat of an international spate of thefts. The pair wore black Muslim dress, including headwear which completely covered their faces, as well as sunglasses, when they carried out the attack.
     The raid on the ATAA Jewellers in Glasgow's Great Western Road resembles thefts in Edinburgh, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt and London, where a robber has dressed as a wealthy Muslim woman to take jewellery worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. ...
     The two suspects are described as Asian, around 5ft 10in to 6ft in height. They were both wearing sunglasses and carrying handbags.
[Site link]

Crime
One-in-six rapes carried out by foreign attackers
Nick Fagge
Daily Express, 6 April 2009

     Foreigners carried out one in six rapes in Britain last year, police figures have revealed.
     And migrant workers, illegal immigrants and even tourists were responsible for up to a third of all sex attacks in some areas.
     In Greater London, the worst area affected, foreigners were charged in connection with one in three rapes, statistics obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show. Other areas with large immigration populations – Cambridgeshire, Merseyside, Hertfordshire, Avon and Somerset – also recorded high numbers of non-UK citizens charged with sex attacks. ...
     But police say it is increasingly difficult to bring foreign rapists to justice due to the large number of migrant workers and illegal immigrants now living in Britain.
     One senior police officer said: "You always have the risk of flight but with an illegal immigrant it is even more difficult because there is no record of them having come into the country in the first place."
[Site link]

Crime – stabbing
Knife attacks on children rise by 72pc in a decade
Alastair Jamieson
Daily Telegraph, 23 March 2009

     The number of children taken to hospital with stab wounds has risen almost three quarters in the past decade, according to government figures.
     Opposition parties said the statistics demonstrated the "scale of Britain's knife crime culture". They come amid growing concern about violent attacks involving children.
     Last year 22 teenagers were killed in knife attacks in London alone.
     Government statistics show that a total of 49,837 people, including 4,510 children, were admitted to hospital for stab wounds between 1996-97 and 2006-07, the last year for which figures are available.
     The Liberal Democrats, who obtained the statistics, said the annual number of children treated for stab wounds increased 72 per cent over the period, while the number treated for gunshot wounds fell 30 per cent.

Crime – prisons
Prisons must be set free from this cycle of failure
Iain Duncan Smith
Sunday Telegraph, 22 March 2009

     Two-thirds of all prisoners are re-convicted within two years and half are re-convicted within a staggering 12 months. This comes at enormous extra cost to the police and the courts – and of course to us, the victims of repeat offending. In financial terms, it amounts to at least £11 billion a year.
     These figures remain very high despite all the promises. The Government set up the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) with the primary task of reducing the reoffending rate. This organisation has cost the taxpayer some £18 billion since 2004, yet despite that massive investment, it has made no impact.
     In 1997, when Labour attacked the Conservatives for locking too many people up in prison, the prison population stood at over 60,000. Their pledge – accompanied by the slogan "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" – was that a Labour government would not only tackle crime but reduce the prison population as well. Yet after 12 years and endless criminal justice bills, the prison population now stands at some 83,000: our prisons are bursting at the seams. No wonder spending on prisons has risen by a quarter, with the cost of maintaining a prisoner now around £40,000 per year. ...
     Over three quarters of prisoners interviewed admit to taking drugs in prison, yet because hardly any are tested, the official figure for drug taking is a risible 9 per cent.

Crime – Netherlands
[Netherlands] Two out of Three Serious Teenage Criminals are Immigrants
NIS News Bulletin, 18 March 2009

     Two out of three serious teenage criminals are children of parents born outside the Netherlands. In most cases, no prison sentence is imposed, it emerges from a study sent to parliament by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin.
     In the research, 447 case files of youngsters aged from 12 to 17 were studied. All the files involved cases in which the perpetrator was convicted of a crime for which the maximum jail sentence is 8 years or more. These were murder, manslaughter, robbery with violence, extortion, arson, public acts of violence and sexual crimes.
     Only just over one-third (37 percent) of the convicted youngsters are white Dutch. Two-thirds are of immigrant origin, meaning that they themselves or their mothers were born abroad.
     "The most prevalent group of youthful immigrants (among the perpetrators) are young Moroccans (14 percent)," according to the report. For another 14 percent, the parents' country of birth could not be determined. A further 8 percent of the young criminals came from Turkey, 7 percent from Surinam and another 7 percent from the Netherlands Antilles, 9 percent from the category 'other non-Westerners' and 4 percent, 'other Westerners.'
     The report also reveals that most offenders did not have to go to jail. Although detention was imposed in 69 percent of the cases - whether or not in combination with community service - the sentences were largely suspended.
     Some 25 percent of offenders only received suspended detention. Another one-third received a combination of suspended and real detention and just 11 percent, only an unconditional prison sentence.
[Site link]

Crime – drugs
Cannabis cultivation is growing
Daily Telegraph, 11 March 2009

     The number of cannabis factories raided by police has risen sharply in the past five years, it has emerged.
     Twenty-nine forces said they had uncovered more of the drug being grown, including Gwent, which detected no factories in 2004 but 151 last year.
     The largest force in the UK, the Metropolitan Police, reported an increase from 206 to 654, while West Midlands saw a rise from 174 to 672.

Crime
Crime by foreigners has doubled in five years
David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 8 March 2009

     Crime committed by foreign nationals has doubled in five years, police figures show.
     Records disclosed by 10 forces reveal a 120 per cent rise in the number of non-Britons arrested, charged or convicted of offences between 2003 and 2008.
     And figures from 20 forces, covering more than half the population of England and Wales, show that foreigners committed or were accused of more than 70,000 offences last year – pointing to a nationwide total of more than 100,000 offences if all 43 forces had provided figures. ...
     The increase in crime committed by foreigners comes despite an overall fall in the number of offences recorded during the five-year period.
     However, the rise has coincided with a sharp increase in the number of migrants to Britain since eight former Eastern Bloc countries, including Poland, became part of the European Union in 2004. ... ...
     Among the forces which did not provide data, 12, including Greater Manchester, Thames Valley and Essex, claimed not to record criminals' nationality, while 11 failed to respond. Among the 15 forces which gave a breakdown by type of offence, there were 120 murders last year for which a foreign national was the prime suspect, and 426 rapes or attempted rapes.

Crime
Trail of crime by 65 killers who were freed early
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 5 March 2009

     Scores of killers released on licences from life sentences have gone on to commit serious crimes, including murder, over the past decade, the Government has admitted.
     According to Ministry of Justice figures 65 prisoners who were released on licence from a life sentence have committed a further offence since 1997.
     The offences included two murders, a suspected murder, one attempted murder and three rapes. ... ...
     Typically 30,000 prisoners are on release at any one time, with 1,300 of those in the most serious risk category.
     Harry Fletcher, the general secretary of the National Association of Parole Officers, said there were insufficient resources to monitor them all.

Crime – racism
Schoolyard 'race attack' almost killed my son
Olga Craig
Sunday Telegraph, 22 February 2009

     When Henry Webster, a 15-year-old rugby player, was beaten at school by a gang of Asian teenagers, he was so badly injured that it was said to be a "miracle" he survived.
     The attack was witnessed by 100 pupils and filmed on a mobile phone.
     But it has taken two years, much of it spent lobbying and letter writing, for his mother Liz to force education authorities to take action.
     Mrs Webster, 44, has now met Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, who recommended an inquiry into the attack. ...
     ... "It has been an excruciating wait. The school might say otherwise but the fact is that the attack on my son was a racial one," Mrs Webster said.
     "The school knew there were tensions – there have been numerous similar attacks before but nothing was ever done. Everything was swept under the carpet.
     "Neither Henry nor I are racist. But I feel my son was badly failed by a school that believes racism is only something that is carried out by white pupils."
     It took a sustained campaign before the review was instigated by Mr Balls.
     After a meeting with Mrs Webster, he wrote to her saying it was "unacceptable that there has not been any full investigation of such a serious incident which left your son with permanent injuries." ...
     ... The case has highlighted the extent of racist incidents in schools and in particular, it is claimed, the reluctance by some to treat attacks as racist when they are carried out by minority cultures.

Crime
Killers from abroad who find refuge in Britain
David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 1 February 2009

     Eighty foreign murder suspects are found in Britain each year after evading justice in their homelands, according to Scotland Yard figures.
     They are among 1,000 foreign nationals a year targeted by a specialist Metropolitan Police squad after their governments apply to have them extradited for offences overseas. The unit handles extradition for all of England and Wales.
     The figures will raise concerns about the strength of Britain's border controls. Some of the wanted individuals are convicted criminals sentenced to terms in foreign jails, while others are crime suspects who fled to Britain before they could be brought to trial.

Crime
Violent offenders 'escaping jail under Labour'
Christopher Hope
Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2009

     More than half of all violent or repeat offenders are escaping a prison term, according to a report yesterday that severely criticised government claims to be tough on crime.
     The Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Civitas) said it was likely that any future rise in crime would not be due to the recession but "the Government's failure to imprison serious, violent and persistent offenders."
     The think tank found that 60 per cent of offenders convicted on more than 15 previous occasions are not sent to prison after being found guilty of a serious, indictable offence in a Crown Court.
     The report also found that more than 70 per cent of criminals convicted of "violence against the person" in 2007 were not jailed.
     Using official government figures, Civitas showed that the number of robbers sent to prison has fallen from 72 per cent in 2002 to 54 per cent in 2007. ...
     The report also found a big fall in the number of serious criminals who were jailed, down from 85,151 in 2002 to 74,037 in 2007.
     This means that just 24 per cent of all serious offenders were jailed.
     If the same sentencing standards in 2002 had been applied five years later, an additional 10,000 criminals would have been in prison rather than "free to endanger members of the public", the report said.
     In 2002, 143,000 cautions were issued. In 2007 the figure was 205,000. ... ...
     But a Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "Since 1997, crime has fallen by more than a third and those who commit crime now have a greater chance of being convicted. ..."

Crime
Poland's petty criminals create £3m headache for British courts
Daily Telegraph, 31 January 2009

     Trivial extradition requests from Poland for offenders including a man who snatched a 20p sleeping pill and another who stole a Christmas tree are clogging the court system and costing up to £3 million a year.
     The number of extradition cases being dealt with in British courts has reached record levels, and have doubled in the past two years. Of the 1,067 requests made last year from abroad to track down foreign fugitives, almost half came from Poland, where the legal system requires a trial for every criminal allegation.

Crime – USA
FBI: Burgeoning gangs behind up to 80% of U.S. crime
Kevin Johnson
USA Today, 30 January 2009

     Criminal gangs in the USA have swelled to an estimated 1 million members responsible for up to 80% of crimes in communities across the nation, according to a gang threat assessment compiled by federal officials.
     The major findings in a report by the Justice Department's National Gang Intelligence Center, which has not been publicly released, conclude gangs are the "primary retail-level distributors of most illicit drugs" and several are "capable" of competing with major U.S.-based Mexican drug-trafficking organizations.
     "A rising number of U.S.-based gangs are seemingly intent on developing working relationships" with U.S. and foreign drug-trafficking organizations and other criminal groups to "gain direct access to foreign sources of illicit drugs," the report concludes.
     The gang population estimate is up 200,000 since 2005.
     Bruce Ferrell, chairman of the Midwest Gang Investigators Association, whose group monitors gang activity in 10 states, says the number of gang members may be even higher than the report's estimate.
     "We've seen an expansion for the last 10 years," says Ferrell, who has reviewed the report. "Each year, the numbers are moving forward."
     The report says about 900,000 gang members live "within local communities across the country," and about 147,000 are in U.S. prisons or jails. ...
     Assistant FBI Director Kenneth Kaiser, the bureau's criminal division chief, says gangs have largely followed the migration paths of immigrant laborers. ...
     One group that continues to spread despite law enforcement efforts is the violent Salvadoran gang known as MS-13.
     Michael Sullivan, the departing director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says the gang's dependence on shocking violence to advance extortion, prostitution and other criminal enterprises has frustrated attempts to infiltrate and disrupt the insular group's activities.
     "MS-13's foothold in the U.S. is expanding," Sullivan says.
     Kaiser says the street gang is in 42 states, up from 33 in 2005. "Enforcement efforts have been effective to a certain extent, but they (gang members) keep moving," he says.
     MS-13 is the abbreviation for the gang also known as Mara Salvatrucha. The group gained national prominence in the 1980s in Los Angeles, where members were linked to incidents involving unusual brutality.
     Since then, it has formed cells or "cliques" across the U.S., says Aaron Escorza, chief of the FBI's MS-13 National Gang Task Force. ...
     Davidson County, Tenn., Sheriff Daron Hall, whose jurisdiction includes Nashville, says MS-13 started growing there about five years ago, corresponding with an influx of immigrant labor.
     Last April, county officials began checking the immigration status of all arrestees. "We know we have removed about 100 gang members, including MS-13," to U.S. authorities for deportation, Hall says. ...
     Escorza says a "revolving door" on the border has kept the gang's numbers steady – about 10,000 in the U.S. – even as many illegal immigrant members are deported.
[Site link]

Crime – discrimination, USA
City accused of bias against blacks, Hispanics in ex-con jobs ban
Thomas Zambito
New York Daily News, 27 January 2009

     A city ban on hiring ex-cons for hospital jobs is unfair to blacks and Hispanics, a city woman claimed in a complaint to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
     Shanae Leath, who was convicted for her role in a mugging nine years ago, lost her shot at a clerical job at Bellevue Hospital when her record came to light. Leath, 28, said the city Health and Hospitals Corp. ban discriminates. ...
     Leath's attorney Justin Swartz says the Health and Hospitals Corp.'s "blanket ban" on hiring applicants with criminal convictions disproportionately affects Hispanics and African-Americans.
[Site link]

Crime – police
Four in 10 serious criminals given just a caution
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2009

     Four in 10 serious offenders are being let off with a caution, ...
     In some police force areas more than half of offenders who could expect to face a crown court are instead given a "slap on the wrist".
     The number of cautions being given to violent criminals has risen by 82 per cent in five years. Cautions given to burglars have increased by a quarter over the same period while cautions for robbers and sex offenders have gone up by almost half. ...
     Even when crimes are dealt with, many offenders are escaping with soft punishments. Cautions are supposed to be handed out for lesser offences but have increasingly been given for more serious crimes. They can only be used if the offender admits guilt, but he then avoids the shame of a court appearance and the likelihood of a harsher sentence.
     It is left to the discretion of the police as to whether the action is recorded on the Police National Computer. This approach means that some offenders who have been cautioned do not receive a criminal record. ...
     In 2007, the most recent figures available, 40 per cent of criminals guilty of the most serious offences were given a caution – 205,100, compared with 313,300 who were dealt with in the courts. It was the second year running that the proportion had reached that level.
     The figures relate to those guilty of either an indictable offence – a crime that would normally be dealt with in a crown court – or a so-called either-way offence, which can be dealt with by magistrates or crown courts. ...
     The number of cautions for violence against the person went up by 82 per cent between 2003 and 2007, from 28,760 to 52,335. Some 56 per cent of violent offenders now escape a court appearance in this way.

Crime – asylum
Asylum seeker who killed ex-marine escapes deportation
Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2009

     A failed asylum seeker who killed a former Royal Marine in a hit-and-run crash has escaped deportation because of a loophole which means his crime is not considered "serious enough" by the Home Office.
     Jean Mukadi, who has had asylum applications rejected three times and failed a driving test seven times, was jailed for four months after fatally injuring Simon Lawrence while driving without a licence or insurance. But he was not sent back to his native Democratic Republic of Congo because foreign offenders can only be deported if they have been jailed for at least 12 months or if they have been convicted of serious gun or drug crimes.
     It means that Mukadi, 33, can remain in Britain while he fights a lengthy appeal against the decision to deny him asylum.

Crime – racism, USA
Blacks and Latinos make up about 80% stopped and questioned by NYPD, study finds
Christina Boyle and Tina Moore
New York Daily News, 16 January 2009

     The NYPD is on pace to stop and question a record half a million citizens this year - about 80% of them black or Latino, a new report says.
     The Center for Constitutional Rights, citing NYPD data obtained in a suit, said the vast majority of those stopped and questioned in 2005 through June 2008 weren't charged with any crime.
     In 2007, for instance, the last complete year of data, cops arrested only 5.8% of the 472,096 people they stopped (27,632).
     "The New York City Police Department continues to prey on African-American and Latino communities in New York City," Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, said.
     The center obtained half of the 2008 data but projected that 543,982 people will be stopped in the entire year if the NYPD maintained its pace.
     Cops made fewer than 400,000 stops in 2005. ...
     Commissioner Paul Browne, the NYPD's chief spokesman, said the number of minorities who were singled out under the policy is consistent with overall descriptions by race provided by victims and surviving witnesses of crime.
     He pointed to a RAND Corp. study that found no racial profiling in its examination, "and warned against the kind of simplistic comparisons made by the center."
[Site link]

Crime
Foreign drivers evade justice
Daily Telegraph, 6 January 2009

     Thousands of foreign-registered drivers escape punishment for driving offences because police cannot trace them.
     In London alone, more than 24 foreign-registered vehicles are caught speeding on camera every day. Police show that speed cameras were activated by foreign-registered vehicles 8,880 times in 2007-8.
     However, the force admitted the "majority" of drivers escape legal action because officers are almost powerless to identify them. Senior officers could only find four examples of foreign drivers who have been prosecuted for serious driving offences.

Crime – USA
The Times's Crime Confusions Persist: Error and distortion at the paper, Heaven help us, of record
Heather Mac Donald
City Journal, 5 January 2009

     The New York Times has been furiously penning policy briefs to the Obama administration. A recent editorial on black crime compresses within a few hundred words decades of failed thinking on public safety. ...
     A new study of homicide among young black males prompted this latest editorial. James Alan Fox and Marc Swatt of Northeastern University found that the number of homicides committed by black males under the age of 18 rose 43 percent between 2002 and 2007, while the number of gun homicides by this same group rose 47 percent. Homicides by white youth during that period decreased slightly. But more significant were the different homicide rates that the report calculated, which no news story dared to divulge. Whereas the report's graph for white homicides over the last 30 years plots the rate in increments of 10, the black rate is demarcated at intervals of 100. The highest homicide rate for whites over the last three decades was 32 homicides committed per 100,000 males between the ages of 18 and 24 (reached in 1991), whereas the highest homicide rate for blacks was approximately 320 homicides per 100,000 males between the ages of 18 and 24 (reached in 1993).
     Even this apparent ten-to-one disparity between black and white homicide rates doesn't tell the full story. Fox and Swatt include Hispanic homicides in the white rate, though they do not disclose that they are doing so (both the inclusion and the silence about it follow FBI practice). Hispanic crime rates are between three and four times that of whites – meaning that if one excluded the Hispanic homicides from the white rate, the black-white differential would be even larger than ten to one.
     The Times responds to the report with the key strategies of liberal apologetics. Strategy Number One: strip moral agency from favored victim groups. Bad things happen to favored victim groups because of forces outside their control; good things also happen to favored victim groups because of outside forces – above all, wise government programs. Any expectation that members of a favored victim group can take responsibility for their lives must be expunged. Strategy Number Two: Never let the following controversial and dangerous word enter a discussion of the underclass – "marriage."
     The editorial initially conceals the Northeastern study's findings. The report, it writes, suggests that "violent crime among young people may be rising"; then, as if in a stray afterthought, the editorial adds that the "study also shows that the murder rate for black teenagers has climbed noticeably since 2000 while the rate for young whites has scarcely changed on the whole and, in some places, has actually declined." That finding – the rising juvenile black homicide rate – is the study's actual import, of course. But the Times would rather contradict itself than lead with the politically incorrect truth.
     Such evasions are trivial, however, compared with the misleading information that the Times pumps out about the causes of, and effective responses to, crime. ...
     ...
[Site link]

Crime – multiculturalism, USA
Khat – is it more coffee or cocaine?
Cynthia Dizikes
Los Angeles Times, 3 January 2009

     For centuries the "flower of paradise" has been used legally in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as a stimulant and social tonic.
     But in the United States khat is illegal, and an increased demand for the plant in cities such as Washington and San Diego is leading to stepped up law enforcement efforts and escalating clashes between narcotics officers and immigrants who defend their use of khat as a time-honored tradition.
     In the last few years, San Diego, which has a large Somali population, has seen an almost eight-fold increase in khat seizures. Nationally, the amount of khat seized annually at the country's ports of entry has grown from 14 metric tons to 55 in about the last decade.
     Most recently, California joined 27 other states and the federal government in banning the most potent substance in khat, and the District of Columbia is proposing to do the same.
     "It is a very touchy subject. Some people see it like a drug; some people see it like coffee," said Abdulaziz Kamus, president of the African Resource Center in Washington, D.C. "You have to understand our background and understand the significance of it in our community."
     Increased immigration from countries such as Ethiopia, Yemen and Somalia has fueled the demand in this country and led to a cultural conflict. ...
     In the Horn of Africa and parts of the Middle East, khat is a regular part of life, often consumed at social gatherings or in the morning before work and by students studying for exams. Users chew the plant like tobacco or brew it as a tea. It produces feelings of euphoria and alertness that can verge on mania and hyperactivity depending on the variety and freshness of the plant.
     But some experts are not convinced that its health and social effects are so benign. A World Health Organization report found that consumption can lead to increased blood pressure, insomnia, anorexia, constipation and general malaise. The report also said that khat can be addictive and lead to psychological and social problems.
     "It is not coffee. It is definitely not like coffee," said Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "It is the same drug used by young kids who go out and shoot people in Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is something that gives you a heightened sense of invincibility, and when you look at those effects, you could take out the word 'khat' and put in 'heroin' or 'cocaine'." ...
     The United Kingdom determined last year that evidence does not warrant restriction of khat. In the United States, the substance has been illegal under federal law since 1993.
     But the world supply of khat is exploding. Countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya now rely on it as a major cash crop to bolster their economies. Khat is Ethiopia's second largest export behind coffee.
[Site link]

Crime – employment
Foreign sex offenders could work in schools
Martin Beckford
Daily Telegraph, 2 January 2009

     Sex offenders could be cleared to work in English schools under a "major loophole" in child protection measures.
     Crimes committed by immigrants in their home countries, or by Britons abroad, will go unnoticed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority because the Criminal Records Bureau, which checks applicants for a criminal background, cannot access records from most foreign governments.
     This could mean that convicted paedophiles or even murderers are cleared to work in schools, hospitals or care homes. ...
     Critics say ministers must address the problem before the scheme begins in October, because 12.5 per cent of the UK workforce comes from abroad.

Crime – USA
Fugitives make off with Medicare millions
Jay Weaver
Miami Herald, 1 January 2009

     Alcides Garcia, former president of a Hialeah medical equipment company, escaped to Cuba in September just before he was to face trial in a $10.7 million Medicare fraud case, according to the FBI.
     Jorge Ramirez, the one-time owner of a Miami clinic that treated blood disorders, was arrested in December and charged with defrauding $42.2 million from Medicare. Ramirez and two codefendants – Eugenio and Maricel Hernandez, accused of $73 million in Medicare fraud – had been indicted a year ago. The FBI said they all fled to Cuba.
     Garcia, Ramirez and the Hernandezes are among dozens of Cuban immigrants who continue to evade prosecution by fleeing to their native country. Prosecutors say they bilked the taxpayer-funded health insurance program out of millions through complex Medicare fraud schemes that have been operating with lax oversight in South Florida for over the past a decade.
[Site link]

Crime – France
More than a thousand cars torched on New Year's Eve
France24.com / Reuters, 1 January 2009

     Update: The French press reported that the Interior Ministry released a final "verified" count of 1,147 vehicles burned in France over New Year's Eve. The number is up 30.64% from last year's total, 878.
     

Crime – stabbings
Fatal stabbings hit record level as five victims die every week
Tom Whitehead and James Kirkup
Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2008

     Fatal stabbings have risen to their highest level for at least three decades, with five people a week now dying from stab wounds.
     Figures due to be published in the new year show that deaths from stab wounds reached 277 last year after increasing by more than a third under Labour.
     That is the highest annual death toll since at least 1977 – the earliest year for which figures are available – when it stood at 135. ...
     Data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act shows some 277 fatal stabbings in England and Wales for 2007-08.
     It is the equivalent of five children or adults dying after being attacked with a knife or sharp object every week.
     The total is also up 38 per cent on the 201 fatalities from sharp objects in 1998-99. ...
     A separate study of hospital admissions across Britain by The Daily Telegraph has shown a growing trend in serious injuries from stabbings. ...
     The data shows that roughly 7,420 people were admitted after being stabbed during 2006-07.

Crime – USA
Study: Murders among black youths on rise
MSNBC.com / Associated Press, 29 December 2008

     The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000, a new study shows.
     The study, to be released Monday by criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, comes as FBI data is showing that murders have leveled off nationwide.
     Not so for black teens, the youngest of whom saw dramatic increases in shooting deaths, the Northeastern report concluded.
     Last year, for example, 426 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 were killed in gun crimes, the study shows. That marked a 40 percent increase from 2000.
     Similarly, an estimated 964 in the same age group committed fatal shootings in 2007 – a 38 percent increase from seven years earlier. ...
     The FBI reported 10,067 arrests in murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases in 2007. Half of the people arrested – 5,078 – were black. Almost 10 percent of black people arrested for murder were under age 18, the FBI data show.
     The number of young white men who committed gun-related homicides also rose over the same period, the Northeastern study showed, but not as dramatically. In 2007, an estimated 384 white males age 14 to 17 shot someone to death, up from 368 in 2000.
[Site link]

Crime – USA
Illegal baby boom hits Big Easy
Chelsea Schilling
World Net Daily, 29 December 2008

     After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, illegal aliens flocked to New Orleans from other U.S. cities to find work – but three years after the storm, the most violent city in America is festering with crime while schools are overcrowded and immigrant births are ballooning.
     The New Orleans Economic Development office estimates the city's Hispanic population has more than tripled since Hurricane Katrina devastated the city. It has risen from 15,000, or 3.3 percent of pre-Katrina residents, to 50,000, or 15 percent of today's population.
     Tulane University and the University of California, Berkeley, released a 2006 study revealing that almost half of the city's construction labor force was Hispanic. At least 54 percent were found to be illegal aliens, and 90 percent had lived elsewhere in the U.S. before migrating to New Orleans.
     As WND reported earlier, News reports indicate a flood of illegal aliens is moving South from states such as Arizona and Oklahoma – where immigration crackdowns have made life more difficult for them, and the slow housing market has made jobs scarce. In New Orleans, families are multiplying faster than hospitals and schools can accommodate them.
     The Associated Press interviewed Kevin Work, a doctor who opened new prenatal offices and hired bilingual employees so he could make a living delivering New Orleans' Hispanic babies.
     He performs "thirty to forty deliveries a month," he said.
     Work told the AP he has helped illegal alien mothers give birth to at least 1,000 babies since the storm hit in August 2005. He said he provides payment plans to help the families afford the births, or they are covered by government programs such as Medicaid.
     In 2004, Emergency Medicaid cost taxpayers $1.7 million in Metro New Orleans, according to the report. Now the government program covers five times as many people, and the cost is more than 4.5 times what it used to be – at $7.8 million. ...
     Meanwhile, the city's streets have reportedly become some of the most dangerous places in the nation. A study conducted by Congressional Quarterly recently labeled New Orleans the most violent city in the U.S. Likewise, Foreign Policy listed it as third among its top five "murder capitals" of the world – behind only Caracas, Venezuela and Cape Town, South Africa.
[Site link]

Crime – USA
Child Maid Trafficking Spreads From Africa to U.S.
Rukmini Callimachi
ABC News / Associated Press, 28 December 2008

     The trafficking of children for domestic labor in the U.S. is an extension of an illegal but common practice in Africa. Families in remote villages send their daughters to work in cities for extra money and the opportunity to escape a dead-end life. Some girls work for free on the understanding that they will at least be better fed in the home of their employer.
     The custom has led to the spread of trafficking, as well-to-do Africans accustomed to employing children immigrate to the U.S. Around one-third of the estimated 10,000 forced laborers in the United States are servants trapped behind the curtains of suburban homes, according to a study by the National Human Rights Center at the University of California at Berkeley and Free the Slaves, a nonprofit group. No one can say how many are children, especially since their work can so easily be masked as chores.
     Once behind the walls of gated communities ... these children never go to school. Unbeknownst to their neighbors, they live as modern-day slaves, ... ...
     Tens of thousands of children in Africa, some as young as 3, are recruited every year to work as domestic servants. They are on call 24 hours a day and are often beaten if they make a mistake. Children are in demand because they earn less than adults and are less likely to complain. In just one city – Casablanca – a 2001 survey by the Moroccan government found more than 15,000 girls under 15 working as maids.
     The U.S. State Department found that over the past year, children have been trafficked to work as servants in at least 33 of Africa's 53 countries. Children from at least 10 African countries were sent as maids to the U.S. and Europe. But the problem is so well hidden that authorities – including the U.N., Interpol and the State Department –have no idea how many child maids now work in the West. ...
     In Germantown, Md., a Nigerian couple used their daughter's passport to bring in a 14-year-old Nigerian girl as their maid. She worked for them for five years before escaping in 2001. In Germany, France, the Netherlands and England, African immigrants have been arrested for forcing children from their home countries to work as their servants.
[Site link]

Crime
Half of violent crimes being punished with only a caution
Daily Telegraph, 27 December 2008

     Half of all violent criminals are let off with a caution, new figures indicate.
     Police issued warnings to 53,000 offenders last year who had committed violence against the person.
     The figure was almost as many as the 61,000 that were prosecuted.
     The statistics were released by Alan Campbell, the justice minister, in a written parliamentary answer to his Conservative counterpart, Edward Garnier, the shadow justice minister. ...
     Home Office figures show that violent offences have nearly doubled from 502,000 in 1998 to 961,000 last year.
     Earlier this week it emerged that almost four out of 10 crimes – including offences such as sexual attacks, violent robberies, harassment, burglary and drug incidents – are not being investigated because police officers believe that they cannot be solved.

Crime – prison overcrowding
Inmates freed early get cash
Rosa Prince
Daily Telegraph, 26 December 2008

     Thousands of foreign prisoners have been released from jail before the end of their sentence and given cash to compensate for the loss of food and board.
     Figures released by the Conservatives show that 2,196 foreign offenders have been invited to take part in the early release scheme, called End of Custody Licence, since its introduction 15 months ago to address prison overcrowding.
     As well as walking free after having served less than half of their sentence, each released prisoner is entitled to about £7 a day to compensate for missing out on the state-provided food and lodging they would have received in jail.
     Offenders released on End of Custody Licence receive an initial payment of £46, followed by the subsistence allowance of £47.12 a week, up to a cap of £168.24.
     The disclosure, in a written parliamentary answer from the Ministry of Justice, follows pledges by Gordon Brown that foreign nationals who offended in Britain "will be deported" and "will pay the price".

Crime – education
Police called to 40 acts of violence in schools every day
Graeme Paton and Jon Swaine
Daily Telegraph, 23 December 2008

     Police are being called out to deal with 40 violent incidents in schools every day, research has found, adding to fears over a breakdown in classroom discipline.
     Figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that officers responded to more than 7,300 calls from schools during the last academic year.
     The Metropolitan police attended on 2,698 occasions while officers in the Thames Valley were alerted 697 times. The total for England could have been more than 10,000 because a third of police forces failed to supply data.
     The figures, obtained by the Conservatives, come amid growing concern about bad behaviour among pupils.
     The gang culture witnessed on many inner-city streets is said to be spilling over into schools, with more pupils bringing knives into lessons. ...
     The Tories obtained data from 25 of England's 39 police forces during the 2007/8 school year of 190 days.
     Separate figures from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers showed a rise in exclusions for violence. Last year, more than 1,000 children aged five and under were suspended for attacking a classmate. The total number of suspensions for assault rose by 2,720 to 65,390.
     A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said it did "not recognise" the Tory figures. "The overwhelming majority of schools are safe and behaviour is very good," she added.

Crime – politics
Brown is accused of spin over knife crime
Andrew Porter
Daily Telegraph, 13 December 2008

     The Prime Minister was embroiled in a row about spin last night after the head of the statistics authority criticised ministers for releasing "selective" knife crime figures against their advice.
     Both No 10 and the Home Office were severely criticised by Sir Michael Scholar, the head of the UK Statistics Authority, for pressurising officials compiling the figures. In a damning letter, Sir Michael said Thursday's release of the data on stabbings was "premature, irregular and selective".
     He told Jeremy Heywood, the Permanent Secretary at No 10, that the figures on hospital admissions for stabbings had not been properly checked. ...
     It is a major embarrassment for Mr Brown, who announced when he became Prime Minister that he would ensure more honesty after years of accusations that Labour used data to spin results in areas such as health and crime.

Crime – knife crime
Knife crime falls in areas targeted by police
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 12 December 2008

     Knife crime has fallen across 10 hotspots targeted by police, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, claimed.
     Figures from the areas involved showed that the number of youngsters admitted to hospital with stab wounds fell by more than a quarter between July and September compared with last year. The number of serious injuries and deaths of youngsters in the same period fell by nearly a fifth.
     Ten areas were in the Tackling Knives Action Programme which involved greater use of stop and search. Fewer youngsters were caught with knives, down from one in 30 to one in 65. Police carried out 105,000 searches between June and October and seized 2,200 weapons.
     But the Home Office refused to give a force-by-force breakdown of the success or to say what proportion of those found with weapons received a prison sentence.
     Meanwhile, four of the ten forces reported increases in knife offences in some form.

Crime – European Union
Foreign offenders slip police net
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 5 December 2008

     Thousands of foreign offenders could be in Britain without police knowledge because half of the countries in the EU are unable to provide criminal records. ...
     The disclosure came almost two years after it emerged that more than 27,000 foreign convictions had not been entered on the police national computer. This meant that convictions abroad did not show up on police or employment vetting checks.
     It could be another three years before effective systems are in place to share criminal data between all EU nations.

Crime – USA, racism
The truth about 'hate crimes' and the racial justice racket
Ron Smith
Baltimore Sun, 3 December 2008

     The Southern Poverty Law Center is a thriving business. The Alabama-based "nonprofit" firm has become a font of riches for founder Morris Dees and his associates. Its last tax return (2005) showed it took in nearly $111 million in donations the previous four years alone and reported assets of $189.4 million at the end of 2005.
     Its business is fundraising, and its success at raking in the cash is based on its ability to sell gullible people on the idea that present-day America is awash in white racism and anti-Semitism, which it will fight tooth-and-nail as the public interest law firm it purports to be. That might lead a skeptic to wonder why it spends little on litigation and why Mr. Dees pockets a lot of money sent in by panicked donors who buy into the smear campaigns against organizations or prominent individuals who question racial preference programs.
     To me and to other observant conservatives, the Southern Poverty Law Center is a clever scam, relentlessly cultivating for profit the fear that this nation is filled with Klansmen and rife with people eager to perpetrate genocide. If you're curious about this organization and its legitimacy, spend some time on the Internet and assess it for yourself, ... ...
     "Hate crimes," as trumpeted by the likes of the Southern Poverty Law Center, are a questionable legal construct used almost exclusively against whites.
     Hateful or not, interracial violent crime is overwhelmingly black on white or black on Asian. The Department of Justice's figures show that between 2001 and 2003, blacks were 39 times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than the reverse. Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
     You won't hear about that from the Southern Poverty Law Center or see it on the evening newscasts, because the truth is one thing and the liberal agenda is another.
[Site link]

Crime – prison overcrowding
Early prison releases hit record levels
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 29 November 2008

     More than 42,000 prisoners have been let out of jail early to ease overcrowding as releases hit record levels.
     Some 2,775 inmates were released up to 18 days early last month - the highest total since the controversial End of Custody Licence scheme began in June last year.
     It takes the total number of inmates let out without completing their full jail terms to 42,181. ...
     Among those who have been let out under the scheme are more than 8,000 violent criminals, almost 4,000 burglars and more than 1,000 robbers.

Crime
Only one in seven offences leads to criminal charges
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 28 November 2008

     Only one in seven crimes results in a criminal being charged and more than half of offenders are never taken to court, figures show.
     The number of criminals being sent to prison is at its lowest level since Labour came to power, while the number receiving a caution has risen by more than a quarter.
     On-the-spot fines have also increased, even though only half are paid without further court action, while offenders being sent to custody fell by one per cent last year.
     It also emerged that only one in five burglars who fell into the "three strikes and out" category was being handed the recommended three-year minimum term.
     A total of 4.95 million crimes were recorded by the police last year but only 673,227 suspects were charged or summonsed to court. Those cases accounted for 49 per cent of the 1.37 million offences that were solved during the year.
     The rest were dealt with by other out-of-court measures, including cautions (26 per cent) and fines (10 per cent), meaning more than half of offenders did not go to court for their crimes.
     Some 95,206 people were jailed last year, the lowest figure since 1997 and a sign of the impact of the pressure courts have been under to send fewer people to prison because of the overcrowding crisis.
     In contrast, 363,000 offenders were given a caution, a four per cent rise on 2006 and 28 per cent up on the 282,100 handed out in 2007.

Crime – asylum
Lawyers are 'concocting stories for asylum seekers'
David Barrett
Sunday Telegraph, 23 November 2008

     Law firms are submitting concocted asylum claims, coaching clients in false stories and even offering to alter fingerprints to help them avoid detection, it has been discovered.
     The "asylum industry", which was criticised last week by Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, costs the taxpayer an estimated £105 million a year. However, it is plagued by unscrupulous legal advisers.
     A firm in the heart of London's Bangladeshi community suggested that its clients could buy a range of illegal services.
     "The firm offered a whole file with a new name and a concocted story that would be signed and sent to the Home Office," said a spokesman for the UK Border Agency (UKBA).
     "They even offered an introduction to a man who could, it was claimed, alter their fingerprints." This could stop applicants who have had their claims refused being identified. Staff also overheard one barrister telling a client to "go home and learn his story". ...
     The Legal Services Commission (LSC) confirmed there are 263 firms authorised to receive Legal Aid for asylum and immigration work, with spending running at about £76 million a year.
     A further £23 million a year goes to two not-for-profit organisations, which provide free legal advice.
     The Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has a budget of £112 million a year, although asylum cases make up less than six per cent of its caseload, at a cost of around £7 million.

Crime – deportation
400 foreign criminals freed in error can stay in Britain
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 21 November 2008

     Up to 400 criminals involved in the scandal over wrongly-released foreign prisoners, including some of the worst offenders, have been told they can stay in Britain, the Home Office disclosed yesterday.
     Less than a third of the 1,013 convicts, who were released without first being considered for deportation, have been sent home, two and a half years after the scandal broke and subsequently cost Charles Clarke his job as home secretary.
     Many more could end up staying in Britain because 90 are still missing, 31 are in prison again and 160 are still going through the legal process.
     The figures emerged as Phil Woolas, the Immigration Minister, admitted that too many migrant workers have been let into the country under previous government policies.
     He also made another attack on asylum lawyers as he disclosed the case of a Nigerian who had his claim rejected four times and was removed, only to be brought back because his solicitor lodged a judicial review.
     Moves to ban individuals taking out multiple judicial reviews will be contained in the forthcoming Queen's Speech, he said.

Crime
Million violent crimes a year, but fewer than half are solved
Tom Whitehead
Daily Telegraph, 18 November 2008

     Fewer than half of almost one million violent crimes committed each year are solved by police, it became clear yesterday.
     The detection rate for offences of violence stood at 49 per cent last year, according to official figures issued in a parliamentary answer.
     When labour came to power, almost three quarters of violent crimes were solved.
     The figures, which mean that every year hundreds of thousands of victims do not see justice done, caused a fresh dispute last night over policing priorities.
     Rank-and-file police leaders and opposition politicians said too much time was taken with red tape or chasing lesser crim