UK to let in 20,000 skilled Indians yearly, bypassing government's new immigration caps
Britain would reportedly allow thousands of Indians to enter the country every year under a European Union (EU) trade deal.
The multibillion-pound EU India Free Trade Agreement, which was initiated by former Trade Commissioner Lord Mandelson in 2007, and is expected to be signed by the end of June, will allow Indian workers, mostly skilled IT professionals, to bypass the Government's new immigration caps, the Daily Express reports. he paper also said that Britain is preparing to accept 20,000 skilled Indian workers every year, 40 per cent of the proposed quota for all 27 countries in the EU.
The proposed deal is a contrast to last year's announcement made by Prime Minister David Cameron that Britain would put an annual restriction on at least 20,700 skilled non-EU workers.
The workers would reportedly enter via controversial "intra-company transfer visas" that allow foreign companies to send cheap homegrown labours to Britain for a maximum of five years.
Business Secretary Vince Cable had won a cabinet battle last November to ensure the visas were exempt from the Government's new points-based immigration cap, the paper said.
Meanwhile, the free trade deal has been criticized by many analysts in Britain who think that it would "punch a huge hole in our immigration controls".
Sir Andrew Green of campaign group Migration Watch said: "The negotiations over a trade agreement between the EU and India are threatening to punch a huge hole in our immigration controls. What is the point of the British government limiting economic migration to 20,000 a year and then letting in another 20,000 Indians?"
"Cable's Business Department seem to be blind to the impact on British workers. With unemployment now close to two and a half million it is shameful that these negotiations should be so shrouded in secrecy," he added.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber has urged Cable to urgently clarify the impact on British jobs, adding: "We have long held concerns about intra-company transfers as employers do not have to make a business case for importing oversees staff or look to recruit in the UK first."bout 30,000 intra-company transfer visas have reportedly been issued to Indian nationals in the past two years. (ANI)
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Boat children key part of racket, says former Australian immigration minister
Former immigration minister Philip Ruddock says children are being used to pave the way for entire families of refugees
FORMER immigration minister Philip Ruddock says children are being used to pave the way for entire families of refugees following a near-doubling of unaccompanied minors in detention.
As the Immigration Department prepares this week to fly nine-year-old Seena Akhlaqi Sheikhdost, whose parents died in the Christmas Island shipwreck, back to Sydney, figures show the number of unaccompanied minors in detention has increased by more than 40 per cent since November, The Australian reports.
Mr Ruddock said yesterday a "significant portion" of those unaccompanied minors had been sent with a view to paving the way for other family members, although he conceded that some might be seeking to avoid forced conscription or other forms of persecution.
"By the time you've got an unaccompanied minor and they've got a claim up, they would argue that under the Convention of the Rights of the Child they've got a right to bring over their parents," Mr Ruddock told The Australian.
"I would suspect that in the majority of cases, they would not be intent on living here alone without their families once they have succeeded . . . I suspect a significant proportion would have been sent for that purpose."
According to the department, the number of unaccompanied minors jumped from 266 at the beginning of November to 453 as of last Friday -- a 41 per cent increase. Unaccompanied minors account for slightly less than half the 1036 minors presently in detention.
Pamela Curr of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre dismissed the theory that families were sending their children ahead as a way of ensuring their own lawful passage through family reunion schemes. "I speak to asylum-seekers in detention and their stories don't bear that out,' she said.
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Background
Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.
Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.
The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:
1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.
2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.
3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.
4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.
5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.
6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.
I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.
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