The Recession: no Solution to Large Scale Immigration
October 19, 2008 

New research published today concludes that the widely forecast recession will not tackle the long term challenge of large scale immigration.

The report was prepared by Migrationwatch at the request of the Cross Party Group on Balanced Migration. It plots annual growth in GDP since 1970 to identify previous years of recession and examines what happened to net migration.  It clearly shows that the reduction of immigration during a recession is only a temporary effect: immigration soon resumes its steep upward trend.

Commenting, Frank Field MP, Labour co-Chairman of the Cross Party Group said:

“Now that a recession is looming on the horizon, some people are claiming that the immigration problem will sort itself out. The record clearly disproves this claim. Government action remains essential and urgent if large-scale immigration is to be brought under control.”

Nicholas Soames MP, the Conservative co-Chairman, said:

“We must be sure that industry can continue to compete as markets get more difficult. But we must balance the needs of industry with those of society.   Failure to curb immigration would mean having to build seven cities the size of Birmingham in England in the next 25 years for new immigrants.  That would not be acceptable to the public.”

How many more people can our small island take? As population heads towards 70 million has the penny dropped for Labour?

By Andrew Green
Chairman of Migration Watch UK
The Daily Mail, London, 19 November 2008

The issues around immigration are steadily becoming clearer as successive government smoke screens are blown away by the cool wind of logic.

New immigration figures being published by the Government today will confirm that very high levels of immigration are continuing at about 200,000 a year.

In recent weeks, the penny has finally dropped in government circles that immigration is having a huge impact on our population. This is not a matter of speculation.

Getting too crowded? The UK population is on course to hit 70 million unless effective measures are taken The Government's own projections show that the UK population will reach 70million in 20 years' time.

.......In short, balanced migration makes a great deal of sense. It is the right objective for the future.

It should be adopted by both the Government and the Opposition as a constructive way forward which at last meets the concerns of the public instead of arrogantly ignoring them.

See Press Articles for the full text.

Toughening the Points Based System
November 10, 2008

Summary
1 With unemployment climbing fast, it is no longer acceptable that jobs which have never been advertised in Britain should be offered to economic migrants. Nor should migrants be admitted without a job to go to. The total of these categories is at least 75,000 jobs a year and probably a good deal more. These arrangements should be suspended while the recession lasts.

Introduction
2 It is not generally realised that a significant number of work permits are issued to foreign economic migrants without the job being advertised in Britain or in the EU and that a considerable number of economic migrants are admitted without a job to go to.

See Briefing Paper No 3.5 for the full text of this paper

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Consultation on Immigration Appeals
November 4, 2008

Migrationwatch Briefing Paper No 8.28 summarised some of the main features of the government’s recently published Draft (Partial) Immigration and Citizenship Bill and appended a copy of the submissions made by Migrationwatch to the Home Affairs Committee of the House of Commons. The draft is described as partial because some important topics have been omitted, with the intention of adding them later so that a complete Bill can be laid before Parliament in the next session. The government has now issued a consultation paper on proposed changes to the immigration appeals system, one of the omitted topics. For a summary of how the present system, introduced in April 2005, works, you are referred to our Briefing Paper No 8.2.(Please note that the reference in paragraph 2 of that paper to the Immigration and Nationality Department of the Home Office should now be read as a reference to the UK Border Agency, the new name of the former Department.) The content of our submissions is inevitably technical in places, but the subject is important. Asylum and immigration appeals are appeals to the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal against decisions of the UK Border Agency which are adverse to the applicant. Appeals are heard by some hundreds of immigration judges at hearing centres in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and other major cities. The most recent figures available show that between April 2007 and March 2008 the Tribunal disposed of over 165,000 appeals.

See Briefing Paper No 8.29 for the full text of this document