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Press Releases for May 2003
May 22, 2003
Asylum Seekers - A Small Part of the Story'…
May 12, 2003
Asylum Seekers - The true impact on our Population…
May 8, 2003
Response from Migrationwatch to the report on asylum removals by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee...
Full Text of Releases : May 2003
Asylum Seekers - A Small Part of the Story'…
Claims about the 'success' of the Government's efforts to reduce the numbers of asylum seekers reveal a fundamental inconsistency at the heart of their overall immigration policy says think-tank Migrationwatch.
Its latest paper, issued today, demonstrates that asylum seeker numbers are, in fact, a fairly small part of the overall immigration issue.
'Government policy is a mystery,' said Migrationwatch chairman, Sir Andrew Green.
'They have doubled immigration. They are now trying to close the back door to Britain for 100,000 asylum seekers on the grounds that many are economic migrants. But at the same time they are opening the front door to about 150,000 work permit holders and their dependants every year as well as a potentially large number of East Europeans from next year.
'This island is already overcrowded. Yet the population is expected to grow by another four million in the next 25 years. Two thirds of migrants go to London and the South East.
'What is the Government doing?' he asked.
Sir Andrew said it would be unfortunate if today's 'success' was used to deflect attention from the wider picture and from the impact on society and on our public services of the highest levels of immigration in our history.
The Group's latest paper 'unmanaged migration' points out that while actively encouraging migration on a very large scale the 'tools' to manage it are not in place. In particular, there is no check on foreigners leaving the country when they should. This results in the chaotic system we now have and growing public concern - as the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons recently pointed out.
The Migrationwatch paper looks at gross immigration as a measure of the task of assimilation and integration which our society faces. It covers those who are known to have entered Britain either with an intention of staying or with an option to stay indefinitely. The number who leaves is not accurately known because there are no checks on the departures of foreign nationals.
'We estimate that gross long-term migration into the UK from outside the present European Union has more than doubled from 186,000 in 1997 to 379,000 in 2002,' said Sir Andrew.
'The continued expansion of the work permit system and migration from the new members of the European Union could increase this figure further to 425,000 in 2004. This will be balanced by departures (not necessarily of the same people) of about 200,000 people a year.'
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Asylum Seekers - The true impact on our Population…
The latest population projections issued by the Office for National Statistics (Population Trends No 111) seriously underestimates the potential impact of asylum seekers on our society.
The migration assumptions include only asylum seekers "allowed to remain" which is taken as 30,000 (less than the five-year average of about 40,000).
A more realistic approach would be to take a five-year average of asylum seekers (including dependants) who made a claim and to subtract those who have been removed or have made a voluntary departure. This calculation gives an average of nearly 80,000 per year over the last five years.
The rejected asylum claimants who are in the majority and who stay on illegally do not, it seems, officially exist in the projections. This is very hard to justify, especially when the official estimates of annual net migration, made by the same official body, do include the majority of asylum claimants each year.
The effect of a more realistic assumption is very significant. The latest official projections assume net immigration of 70,000 a year plus 30,000 asylum seekers who are allowed to stay - a total of 100,000. Taking all asylum seekers who stay, whether officially permitted to do so or not (about 80,000), brings net immigration to 150,000.
If this proves to be a more accurate assumption, the effect on our population would be to increase it to about the level of the ONS high migration variant - that is by nearly six million instead of by 4.3 million by 2026 and the proportion due to immigration would be about 70%, rather than 60%. (Population Trends 111, figure 6)
It is not, of course, possible to say now which assumption is correct. But it is certainly true, that unless effective measures are taken, present levels of asylum seeking are likely to continue (and even increase) with a major impact on our society.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of MigrationwatchUK, said: This is potentially very significant. The issue is the large number of failed asylum seekers who remain in Britain. They, but not their dependants, are included in the annual immigration figures but they seem to have been omitted from the forward population projections. They should not be brushed out of sight by a technical assumption that falls well short of present realities.
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Response from Migrationwatch to the report on asylum removals by the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee...
We welcome the call for more accurate and meaningful statistics, this is something we have sought for some time.
We entirely agree that effective removals is the key to a credible system - but are very concerned that the Committee has not made any significant proposals to achieve this given that they themselves recognise the centrality of this issue.
This reinforces our view that a major change in the legal framework is required if this problem is to be effectively tackled. As the report says allowing the situation to remain as it is will lead inevitably to social unrest.
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