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Press Releases for April 2010
April 28, 2010
Cost per head of an Amnesty about £½ Million Per Head Over a Lifetime
April 25, 2010
Over a Million Illegal Immigrants in the UK
April 25, 2010
Migrationwatch briefing
Clegg struggles on immigration policy
April 15, 2010
Comment on Liberal Democrat Manifesto
April 13, 2010
Comment on Conservative Manifesto
April 12, 2010
Migrationwatch response to the Labour Manifesto
April 7, 2010
Immigration: Now it's the Foreign Secretary Who Get's His Facts Seriously Wrong
April 5, 2010
Prime Minister gets it wrong on immigration – again
Full Text of Releases : April 2010
Cost per head of an Amnesty about £½ Million Per Head Over a Lifetime
A new report out today examines the cost of granting an amnesty to an illegal immigrant. The report, by think tank Migrationwatch, follows their estimate last week that there are about 1.1 million people living illegally in the UK. Many of them are working on the black market at less than the minimum wage.
The report examines the cost to the tax payer over the life time of an illegal immigrant who has been granted an amnesty and therefore full access to the welfare state at the age of 35. It assumes that obtaining legal status will, on average, allow the migrant to earn 50% more than the legal minimum wage.
For a single person the cost would be £220,000 rising to £660,000 if he or she were to be unemployed throughout.
For a family with two children and both parents working the cost would be £170,000. With only one spouse working the cost comes to £560,000 and, if they are both unemployed, the total adds up to just over £1 million.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman, Migrationwatch, said ‘At a time when the government have run out of money and our national debt is shooting up, it is crazy to suggest that these vast sums should be spent rewarding people who have been breaking our laws for many years and competing unfairly with British workers.’
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Over a Million Illegal Immigrants in the UK
There are now over a million illegal immigrants in Britain according to a new report out today from Migrationwatch.
The report examined the only two previous studies - one commissioned by the Home Office in 2005 and the other produced by the London School of Economics in 2009 for the Mayor of London. The report explains that the LSE study severely underestimates the number of people who have entered Britain illegally and those who have come on a visa but have overstayed. It concludes that their previous central estimate of 618,000 should be revised to 1.1 million.
Commenting Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch UK said, "It is hard to understand why anyone should suggest that people who have cheated the system for ten years should be rewarded with British citizenship and full access to the welfare state. It seems that the law applies to Brits but not to immigrants. What is more, we are talking here about over a million people - a number which would eventually be doubled by relatives who would acquire a right to come here. It is hard to think of a more crazy suggestion for wasting billions of pounds of tax payers money when the government is already broke".
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Migrationwatch briefing
Clegg struggles on immigration policy
Interviewed by Andrew Marr on BBC 1 on Sunday morning, Nick Clegg was clearly struggling to defend Lib Dem immigration policy.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman, MigrationwatchUK, said: “It is shocking that the leader of one of the main political parties should be so poorly informed about an issue of enormous concern to the public. As a result Lib Dem policies on immigration can only be described as laughable.”
1 Amnesty
Clegg claimed that his amnesty for those illegals who had been here ten years would be a “one off” measure but;
Italy- what about the following year when those who have been here nine years would qualify…..and so on? To “deal with” the present crop of illegals the amnesty would have to last for ten years, otherwise it would only deal with a relatively small proportion of the one million or more now here.
- What about proving ten years residence when, by definition, there are no documents?
- What about the risk of fraud? An American amnesty in the mid 1980s was found to attract 75% fraudulent applications from Mexicans [1].
- What about European experience with Amnesties? Here is the experience of Spain and Italy [2]:
| 1987/88 | 1990 | 1996 | 1998 | 2002 |
| 119,000 | 235,000 | 259,000 | 308,000 | 700,000 |
Spain
| 1985/86 | 1991 | 1996 | 2000 | 2001 | 2005 |
| 44,000 | 135,000 | 21,000 | 127,000 | 314,000 | 700,000 |
2 Regional Work Permits
Obviously impractical in British conditions as Andrew Marr pointed out. However, Clegg claimed that it works in Australia and Canada.
In Australia such work permits are only about 5% of total immigration which is itself subject to an overall policy driven limit – something that the Lib Dems oppose.
In Canada the Provinces can decide who they wish to bring in on a permanent basis but their right to move to other provinces is guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a result many enter through the Quebec programme and then move to British Columbia. Thus the scheme does not achieve the aim described by Clegg.
3 Overall limit
Clegg claimed that most immigration is from the EU. This is false. Net immigration from the EU 15 has averaged only 20,000 over the past ten years. Net immigration from Eastern Europe is already falling (to 20,000 in 2008) [3}.
1. http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSELondon/pdf/
irregular%20migrants%20full%20report.pdf page 24, para3
2 Home Office on-line report 58/04 Table 5.1
3 http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=15053
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Comment on Liberal Democrat Manifesto
'This is immigration with no limits whatsoever but spiced up with two unworkable proposals - a regional immigration policy that would be impossible to enforce and an amnesty that is certain to encourage still further illegal immigration. The LibDems are treating the public as if they were fools.'
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Comment on Conservative Manifesto
Commenting on the proposals on immigration in the Conservative manifesto, Migrationwatch chairman, Sir Andrew Green said today:
‘This is a very significant turning point in the crucial debate on immigration, which is of huge concern to the public. At last we have a manifesto that sets out, for the first time, an overall objective for net immigration. This is a reversal of the policies of the last decade - but of course there will be plenty of devils in the detail. Unless we can get net immigration down to about 40,000, a UK population of 70 million will be inevitable’
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Migrationwatch response to the Labour Manifesto
Commenting on the section on immigration in the Labour Party Manifesto, Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said today:
'On immigration, Labour's manifesto shows some glimpses of light. Breaking the link between economic migration and permanent settlement is a valuable step forward. Mention of limits on high skilled workers and university students would be more significant if any such limits were specified. But on the central issue of an overall limit to immigration, the manifesto is deeply unconvincing. The authors were clearly ducking and weaving to avoid the commitment that really matters to the public, namely a broad policy objective to achieve a sharp reduction in immigration.'
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Immigration: Now it's the Foreign Secretary Who Get's His Facts Seriously Wrong
No sooner has the PM had his knuckles wrapped by the Statistics Authority for using misleading statistics on immigration, than his Foreign Secretary does the same on Radio 5 Live.
In an interview at 8.40 a.m. this morning on the Five Live Breakfast Show, David Miliband said:
"One point that is very often not understood is that half the people who came into the country last year, of 160,000, were British people returning to Britain ……..".
In fact he was referring to net immigration for 2008 which was 163,000 but none of them were British people returning home. In fact, twice as many Brits left as arrived that year so they made no contribution to net immigration. Of the total of 590,000 who arrived in 2008 only about 1 in 7 was British.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green Chairman of Migrationwatch said, 'Yet again a very senior member of the Government has got his facts on immigration completely wrong. If Cabinet Ministers cannot get the basic facts right, how can they possibly have an effective immigration policy.’
NOTE TO EDITORS:
You can listen again at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0070htg
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Prime Minister gets it wrong on immigration – again
In his speech on immigration on 31 March, the Prime Minister attacked “those who propose a quota” on immigration. He claimed that it was unworkable and quoted from an IPPR paper to support his case.
In fact nobody is calling for a quota on immigration. He was, presumably, confusing an overall policy objective for net immigration which the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration wish to see with a Conservative proposal for a cap on work permits which are only a small part of the picture.
A report out today from Migrationwatch examines the IPPR claims quoted by the Prime Minister and finds them to be unfounded. They are based on an overestimate of net immigration from the EU and they fail to take account of the plans by both major parties for a second Points Based test before economic migrants are granted settlement. The Migrationwatch paper demonstrates that a broad strategic aim of 40,000 a year is entirely feasible over a period of years.
Said Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch: 'The Prime Minister is again getting into a muddle over immigration. It is hard to know whether he is trying to distract attention from the inexcusable government record of admitting three million immigrants since 1997 or whether he is seeking to avoid any firm commitment to limiting immigrant numbers in future.'
NOTE TO EDITORS:
NOTES
1. The text of the Prime Ministers speech can be found at http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speeches-and-transcripts
2. The IPPR paper “The limit to limits” is at http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/
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