Immigration Watch International (2): Sunak Moves to Curb Migration Citing Strain on UK Services

Monday, June 5, 2023

Sunak Moves to Curb Migration Citing Strain on UK Services

Rishi Sunak this week will defend his efforts to curb migration, saying the UK government is struggling to cope with the number of arrivals.

The prime minister will appear at an event in Kent in southern England on Monday to draw attention to progress over the last six months, notably 50% increase on raids for those working illegally and 700 new staff to track people crossing the English Channel in small boats.

Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick said the government will deploy barges and unused army bases to house people seeking asylum and tell young men four people will have to share one room.

The measures are aimed at making Britain a less-attractive destination to people arriving through informal routes. Ministers are concerned a record 606,000 more people moved to Britain than departed last year despite a promise to reduce immigration.

“We also can’t allow the UK to be perceived to be a soft touch,” Jenrick said on BBC television’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg show. “It’s placing serious pressure on public services and our ability to successfully integrate people into the country.”

Immigration has become a lightning rod for the right wing of the ruling Conservative Party after a wave of migrants arrived in small boats this spring and inflows hit a record.

Sunak has backed away from a manifesto promise to cut migration, but ministers are working on measures to deport 3,000 people a month deemed to have entered the UK though means they deem are illegal. While the vast majority of immigrants arrive legally with visas, it’s the informal routes and especially asylum that are the prime focus.

The Labour opposition has promised to cut immigration levels and says the Conservatives are to blame for letting numbers get out of control. The issue has added to friction with business lobby groups, which are urging a relaxing of the rules to allow in workers needed to fill vacant jobs and alleviate upward pressures on wages.

“We want businesses to be in the first instance investing in British workers and technology and automation that drives productivity, not just reaching for the easy lever of foreign labor,” Jenrick told the BBC.

Sunak’s office said on Sunday that the prime minister will say the current measures are working but “there is more to be done.” The government already has signed deals with France and Albania aimed at limiting flows and passed in legislation in the House of Commons that ensures that “if you come here illegally, you will be detained and swiftly removed,” Downing Street said in a statement released Sunday.

Jenrick said the asylum system needs “fundamental” reform because it’s “riddled with abuse,” notably the government paying too much money to hotel operators for housing people.

The Illegal Migration Bill, due before the House of Lords on Wednesday, will let officials detain migrants who arrive through informal channels. The government wants to return many of them home — or to Rwanda.

“That will create the deterrent we desperately need,” Jenrick said. “It will break the business model of the people smuggling gangs, and it will stop the system from coming under intolerable pressure like it is today.”

The House of Commons on Wednesday is set to approve a bill that will confirm how and when immigrants are considered settled in the UK for citizenship purposes.

Jenrick said it’s reasonable to ask asylum seekers to share rooms, brushing aside concerns of a group that refused to enter a hotel in Pimlico, where the Home Office had asked them to sleep “four people per room.”

The leader of Westminster City Council expressed “deep concern” that some 40 refugees were placed in the borough last week “without appropriate accommodation or support available,” the Press Association reported.

“We had offered them a safe bed with board and lodgings in a good-quality hotel in central London,” Jenrick said on the BBC. “Yes, some of them had to share with other people. These are single adult males, I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

He said the government wants to reduce the cost to taxpayers of housing asylum seekers, saying that putting them in hotels drains “valuable assets for the local business community.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-04/rishi-sunak-moves-to-curb-migration-citing-strain-on-uk-services

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com (TONGUE-TIED)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://awesternheart.blogspot.com.au/ (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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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.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Monday, June 5, 2023

Sunak Moves to Curb Migration Citing Strain on UK Services

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