Immigration into Britain from Eastern Europe

An upbeat view  -- but time will tell

On January 16th Stewart Jackson, a conservative member of parliament, presented a bill calling to limit the immigration process for Romanian and Bulgarians coming to Britain: “We don’t want to make the same mistake that we made in 2004, which was to import a very large number of low-wage, low-skill workers and embed welfare dependency in our indigenous workforce.” In a speech last month, Theresa May, the home secretary, said that migration puts a downward pressure on wages and has a bad influence on the social cohesion of the country.

Mr Stewart and Ms May omit to mention the positive effects of the last big influx of workers from new EU member countries. It was vastly higher than predicted, but it was also more successful than forecast. According to a study conducted by The Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford migrants from so-called A8 countries (the eight countries that joined the EU in 2004) have made a positive contribution to the country’s public finances in each fiscal year since their EU accession. While they mostly work in the lower wage sector, their labour-force participation and employment rates tend to be higher, which offsets the impact of their lower wages.

A number of studies show that immigrants are slowing the ageing of Britain’s population. And despite the popular belief that a new wave of immigrants will increase unemployment the National Institute of Economics and Social Research states that there is no aggregate impact of migration on unemployment.

Maybe most importantly, Britain today is less attractive to would-be immigrants than ten years ago, In 2004, only Britain and two other countries did away with almost all restrictions for workers from A8 countries. Since it was the largest economy of the three and its economy was booming, Britain became a magnet for them. This time, all EU countries are opening their labour markets Romanians and Bulgarians. And Britain’s economy is in dire straits.

Titus Corlăţean, Romania’s minister of foreign affairs, believes figures of Romanians immigrating to Britain next year circulated in the British press are wildly exaggerated. According to Mr Corlăţean the issue has become a British domestic political “game”, kindled by the United Kingdom Independence Party, an insurgent outfit devoted to Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union. He is relying on the British government that it “will respect what is written in the European Treaty for the accession of Romania, that from January 1st 2014 there will be a free access for Romanians to the labour market in Britain,” he said.

Surveys show that immigration is one of Britons’ biggest concerns. A report by British Future, a think tank, has revealed that people worry more about immigration as a national than as a local issue. Its State of the Nation poll found that 19% chose immigration as a top local worry while 30% placed immigration first when thinking about tensions facing British society as a whole. This suggests that immigration is more a problem of perception than of reality.

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Obama wants it all  -- so may get nothing

President Obama’s second inaugural address was heavy on the theme of unity. He used the word “together” seven times in the 15-minute speech. But tucked inside was a prelude to a contentious fight he’ll soon have with Republicans—the battle over reforming the nation’s immigration laws.

Obama couched his comments about the issue in uplifting language: “Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity,” he said. “Until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce, rather than expelled from our country.”

On the surface, there’s nothing controversial about that. Increasing the number of visas for highly-skilled immigrants is one of the few policy goals Obama and the GOP agree on. That reflects a big change in Republican thinking in recent months, as party leaders saw support among Hispanics drop in the face of tough anti-immigrant rhetoric. When Mitt Romney talked about immigrants during the Republican primaries, he focused on undocumented workers, suggesting they should “self-deport.” By the summer, he had softened his tone, saying he wanted to “staple a green card to the diplomas” of all foreign math and science grads who study at U.S. universities.

If visas for highly -skilled workers were the only issue on the table, Democrats and Republicans could solve it fairly quickly. The GOP would need a little time to convince the staunchest conservatives to sign on. Democrats would have to win over unions, but that might not be too difficult because most science and engineering grads work in fields with few union jobs, anyway.

But that’s not the way it’s going to happen. What Obama didn’t say in his speech, and the thing Republicans will latch onto in the days ahead, is that he wants to tie the popular idea of raising visas for skilled workers to making broader changes in immigration laws—to which that Republicans strongly object.

Last week, administration officials—speaking anonymously, of course—”leaked” to reporters some of the details of Obama’s immigration plan. For the first time, the White House made clear that the president won’t agree to raise the visa caps for highly skilled immigrants unless it’s part of an overall reform plan that includes a path to citizenship for many of the estimated 11 million immigrants living illegally in the U.S.

These immigrants aren’t the “bright young” future job-creators Obama lauded in his speech. Most work dirty jobs for low wages, and many lack high-school diplomas. They’re the undocumented workers that Republican governors in Arizona, Georgia, Alabama, and other states have driven away with tough anti-immigration laws.

Obama’s insistence on an everything-at-once approach puts Republicans in a difficult position as the party struggles to settle on a policy that its different factions can rally around. For many House Republicans from Southern and border states, such words as “legalization” and “citizenship” are non-starters. But increasingly, party leaders and other prominent conservatives—House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Charlie Spies, counsel for the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, even Bill O’Reilly–are advocating for a compromise—yet to be defined—between “throw them out” and “let them stay.”

This means that skilled would-be immigrants hoping for the door to open could be in for a long wait. They’ve become the essential bargaining chip in what will likely be a tense, protracted negotiation—not just between Democrats and Republicans, but among Republicans themselves.

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Skilled immigration reform and STEM education advocates get spotlight in inaugural address

Washington woke early Monday to begin its quadrennial ritual of watching, waiting and bearing witness to the presidential swearing-in.

Advocates for greater investment in math and science education and for changes to the nation’s visa laws for skilled immigrants got a surge of nitrogen to their engines.  [Is that unintentional bathos?  Nitrogen does not burn.  We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea]

In his inaugural address Monday, President Obama placed both issues front and center, emphasizing their priority with their placement in one of the most high-profile speeches of his presidency.

“No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future. Or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores,” said the president before a crowd estimated to be anywhere between 800,000 and a million people, with millions more watching across the country and around the world.

Then there was his reference to immigration reform, particularly that of skilled immigrants — those who acquire degrees in science and technology but are unable to stay in the United States.

“Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity,” said Obama, “until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.”

Obama’s remarks in his second and final inaugural address, were, as others have mentioned, a clearly broadcast signal of his position on a range of issues, including climate change, renewable energy, and entitlement programs. But for advocates who have long called for greater emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math education and a growing community that wants change to the nation’s immigration laws, particularly for skilled immigrants, the president sent an even clearer signal.

But this isn’t the first time Obama has incorporated these issues into a key, national address. During his 2012 State of the Union, nearly a year ago today, the president made a similar appeal for reform to the immigration laws as they pertain to those trained in science and technology:

...let’s also remember that hundreds of thousands of talented, hard-working students in this country face another challenge: the fact that they aren’t yet American citizens. Many were brought here as small children, are American through and through, yet they live every day with the threat of deportation. Others came more recently, to study business and science and engineering, but as soon as they get their degree, we send them home to invent new products and create new jobs somewhere else. That doesn’t make sense.

Let’s see if, this time, the hope of advocates for reform of the nation’s skilled immigration laws is met, to use the president’s old campaign slogan, with actual change.

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Obama’s Empty Promises on Immigration
 
Immigration reform made a brief appearance in President Obama’s inauguration address, disappearing faster than the shadow of Punxsutawney Phil on Groundhog Day. “Our journey is not complete,” Obama declared, “until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.”

Much like the elusive predictor of the length of winter, the President’s promises to fix our broken borders and deeply flawed immigration system have become an annual event. The clarion call in this speech seems particularly vacuous—leaving no suggestion of what the President actually plans to do.

Many on Capitol Hill believe that the President plans to back a “comprehensive” bill—a confusing, complicated, and contentious measure that Congress has rejected before. That’s a disappointing approach that shows Obama is more interested in playing politics than solving problems.

“Comprehensive” legislation–likely to be written behind closed doors producing a massive, unwieldy bill loaded with measures for special interests–will worsen the problems it seeks to solve. A real problem-solving approach would look to unite the left and right behind the proposals we can all agree on and look for solutions that actually make the system work better.

Instead of a comprehensive bill, a problem-solving approach that treats each of the many issues in our immigration system in its own lane can offer a better solution. In this manner, reforms can move forward in multiple areas at the same time and advance toward meaningful and effective solutions. That is an approach that would turn the meaningless words in the President’s speech into real answers.

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Migrant baby boom triggers midwife crisis in Britain: Half of wards being forced to turn expectant mothers away

Women in labour are being turned away from maternity units as midwives are overwhelmed by record numbers of births.

With immigrants helping push birth rates in England to their highest level for 40 years, more than half of maternity wards admit shutting their doors an average of seven times a year when the strain on midwives becomes too great.

Expectant women who then turn up are sent away to other hospitals.

Research by The Royal College of Midwives says that thousands of new midwives are needed if the ‘massive gap’ in staffing is to be plugged, the ‘relentless rise in births’ handled and for mothers and babies to be given the quality of care they need.

Yesterday Cathy Warwick, chief executive of the RCM, warned of ‘threadbare’ services with midwives ‘running themselves ragged’. She said: ‘Maternity units are under intense strain, with many midwives really at the end of their tether. We are reaching a crucial tipping point for maternity services.’

The RCM’s State Of Maternity Services report, which will be launched at an event in Parliament tomorrow, says that although there have been attempts to boost midwife numbers, England alone still needs another 5,000 – an increase of about a quarter on today’s level.

Office for National Statistics figures show there were 688,120 babies born in England in 2011, the most since 1971.

The trend seems set to continue, with provisional data for 2012 pointing to it being another record-breaker and ONS projections suggesting the birth rate in England could hit 743,000 by 2014.

Corby in Northamptonshire saw the biggest baby boom, with a 63 per cent jump between 2002 and 2011 – three times the rise across England as a whole.  Other hotspots include Bournemouth, with a 54 per cent increase, Boston, Lincolnshire (53.5 per cent), the London borough of Barking and Dagenham (52.5 per cent) and Slough in Berkshire, which saw a 50.5 per cent rise.
birthrate hotspots

Immigration is one factor, with foreign-born mothers now having nearly a quarter of all babies in Britain, but the RCM report says midwives are also struggling to look after record numbers of older mothers, who are more prone to complications.

The report follows a survey of new mothers which found that despite a Government pledge for mothers-to-be to have their care overseen by one midwife, 40 per cent always saw a different one.

Health Minister Dr Dan Poulter said that more than 800 new midwives have started work since 2010, and 5,000 more are due to qualify in the next three years.

He added: ‘The number of midwives is increasing faster than the birth rate. Most women already have one-to-one maternity care, and we are working closely with The Royal College of Midwives to ensure that is available for every woman.’

Thousands of patients are at risk from appalling care reminiscent of scandal-hit Stafford Hospital, the health secretary has claimed.

Jeremy Hunt’s warning comes just weeks before the report of a public inquiry into the deaths of up to 1,200 people from poor care in the hospital’s A&E department between 2005 and 2009.

He said that while there are no hospitals as bad as Stafford, ‘there are little bits of Stafford dotted around the system’.

He added: ‘The biggest change the NHS needs to make is to embed compassion at the heart of what it does.’

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Illegal immigrants pay £1,500 to be smuggled OUT of Britain: Fears gangs are helping foreign criminals flee the country

Illegal immigrants are paying criminal gangs £1,500 a time to smuggle them out of Britain, it emerged last night. The foreign nationals – many of whom sneaked into the UK undetected in the first place – are put in the back of lorries and transported to France.

By avoiding contact with the authorities they can travel on to a European destination of their choice, rather than risk being sent back to their homeland thousands of miles away.

It is feared that foreign criminals on the run from the police are fleeing in this way.

The bizarre trade, exposed by a BBC Panorama investigation to be shown this evening, is an embarrassment for ministers.

Critics will say it shows how the Government cannot stop illegal migrants from leaving Britain, let alone entering.

Over a year, Panorama made contact with three criminal gangs offering to smuggle illegal immigrants out of the country with no questions asked.

Reporter Paul Kenyon secretly recorded the meeting with the fixer of one gang, held in a fast-food restaurant in London.

He posed as an immigrant from Moldova who had been working illegally in the UK without a passport or paperwork and who wanted to return home to his sick wife.

The fixer, a former Indian police officer called ‘Munga’, said for £1,500 per person the gang would smuggle groups of three or four illegal immigrants across the Channel in the back of a lorry, taking them to Calais train station.

Mr Kenyon told the Daily Mail: ‘This is a trade in human cargo of a very different kind to the one the UK Border Agency is used to.

‘Many people will be astonished – as well as relieved – to learn that illegal immigrants are abandoning the UK in search of work abroad.

‘It suggests that attempts to crack down on failed asylum seekers and overstayers – as well as the downturn in our own economy and subsequent lack of work here – could at last be having an effect.

‘But who is to say that when these people fail to find work abroad, they won’t simply buy their way back to Britain via the very people traffickers they used to leave the country.

‘Once back here, they might then try again to claim asylum, or simply vanish into the “ghost” community.’

Illegal immigrants who are caught by the authorities are offered financial ‘bribes’ if they agree to go home.

Officials estimate a forced deportation costs more than £11,000.

Mark Harper, the immigration minister, yesterday admitted:  ‘It is possible we don’t catch every single person who tries  to enter the country clandestinely.’

But he added: ‘When we do catch people, we’re increasing the work we do with our European colleagues. We make sure people are fingerprinted so we can check to see if they have entered the European Union in another country.

‘If they have, we can return them back to the country where they first entered.’

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Santorum's view

Rick Santorum suggested on Sunday that Republicans are ready to tackle immigration reform.  "I think the Republicans are ready to do something on immigration," he said on ABC's This Week.

He stressed that President Obama and the Democrats would need to be willing to compromise with Republicans, though.

"They're not willing to give the president everything he wants, because I think they believe the rule of law still matters in this country and that -- and that we have to respect those who did it the right way, who waited in line, and did -- and made sacrifices, and that they shouldn't be treated the same as people who broke the law and came here," he said.

The former presidential candidate said he thought Obama was unwilling to compromise on immigration.

"There's not a single Republican up on Capitol Hill who believes he wants to get it done. They all believe ... he will put a measure that the Republicans can't accept and then blame Republicans and then continue to drive a wedge between Republicans and Hispanics."

He also criticized the president over the recent debt ceiling negotiations. He said that the administration's reaction to Republicans' announcement that they would seek a 3-month extension of the debt limit was harsh.

"That's the problem with this administration," he said. "They're not very gracious winners. And I always said, you know, there's one thing worse than a sore loser, and that's a sore winner. And the president's a sore winner.

Santorum also sounded off on gun control.

"Fifty years ago, you could go on a catalog and buy a gun," he said. "There were no restrictions on gun ownership. There were no restrictions on magazines. There were no restrictions on anything. And we had a lot less violence in society than we do today."

The former Pennsylvania senator, who now chairs conservative group Patriot Voices, has in the past made strong statements against immigration reform. During his 2012 presidential run, he said that families with undocumented immigrations should be broken up. However, he has taken a softer tone on the issue since ending his campaign. In December, he said that the U.S. needs immigration.

“I think the fact that we send some of those people back and don’t give them the opportunity to participate here is wrong," Santorum told Politico. “I think we need to look at a simple fact: We are not having enough children to replace ourselves. Our country is not growing in population simply by the people that are here.”

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Asian Immigration To California Has Surpassed Latin-American Immigration

California is facing the end of an era as Asian immigrants have begun to come to California faster than Latino immigrants.

"This is a pretty astounding change over a short period of time," Hans Johnson, co-director of the Public Policy Institute of California, told the Sacremento Bee, citing census data.

In 2001, 42 percent of immigrants coming to California were from Latin America, primarily Mexico, while 37 percent were from Asia, the Bee reports. In 2011, 57 percent of new immigrants were from Asia, and just 22 percent were from Latin America.

The demographic breakdown of California's swearing-in of new citizens Wednesday was as follows:

450 from Asia (100 from India, 94 from the Philippines, 63 from Vietnam, 33 from China, 29 from Laos), 160 from Latin America (119 people from Mexico), 35 from Ukraine,

Johneric Concordia, a restaurant owner in LA's Filipinotown, told NBC that he is optimistic that the state's new immigration trend will mean more Asian political candidates, loans and scholarships.

One hurdle that Asians face in advocating for such access, however, is the diversity of Asian languages -- whereas most Latinos speak Spanish.

Doreena Wong of the Los Angeles Asian Pacific American Legal Center, told ABC that a lot of Asian immigrants are highly-educated and employable. "There are a lot of students from overseas countries in Asia and then they come here and get jobs," Wong said.

But this immigration change doesn't mean that the number of Asians in California is about to surpass the number of Latinos.

In fact, Latinos are expected to become California's largest ethnic group sometime this year, which is a couple of years earlier than demographers predicted. That's partially because California's birthrate is declining, as is migration from other states and nations.

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What Gets in the Way of U.S. Immigration Reform

A useful summary below but it ignores the elephant in the room:  Republicans would be out of their minds to add millions more of Democrat voters to the voter lists.  Hispanics are their own worst enemy.  The big majority are and will remain poor so will always vote Democrat even if Republicans do an octopus job of "reaching out"

There's been lots of talk about legislation, but reform could face significant roadblocks in Congress.

The Gang of Eight is drafting principles. The White House says immigration reform could be in the State of the Union. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., is planning Judiciary hearings. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO have joined hands to push for action. There's no shortage of political will to get immigration reform done in this Congress, but attempts at an overhaul of the system have failed before, and lawmakers still have several major hurdles to overcome this time.  Here are a few:

A path to citizenship versus legal status: This is the single most divisive issue that lawmakers will have to overcome. Democrats, in general, will demand that any legislation include a path to citizenship (this is also a priority for the AFL-CIO). Many Republicans, on the other hand, remain staunchly opposed to anything resembling amnesty. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told a Nevada news outlet that a bipartisan group of senators “have agreed tentatively on a path to citizenship, which is the big stumbling block.” But it remains to be seen whether that agreement would be acceptable to the entire Congress.

Comprehensive versus piecemeal reform: Proponents say a comprehensive package is the only way to fix the system. It’s also a top priority of the president and the aim of the Gang of Eight—Sens. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., John McCain, R-Ariz., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and newly elected Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. But a comprehensive bill also gives everyone something to hate. Some lawmakers, such as Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, say it will be easier to tackle different reforms in smaller bills because different coalitions will support each piece.

Inclusion of a guest-worker program: Disagreement over granting foreign workers temporary visas to work in the United States has historically separated business and labor groups, but the two are trying to find common ground this time. Jeff Hauser, spokesman for the AFL-CIO—which has opposed such programs in the past—said his group is talking to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce about ways to create a depoliticized body to manage the future flow of workers.

The Hastert Rule: While a number of high-profile Republicans such as McCain have worked on immigration reform for years, it’s still likely that legislation will have more Democratic than Republican support. But House Speaker John Boehner has generally run the House in the style of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, always ensuring that a majority of the majority party supports legislation before bringing it to the floor. The rule was violated to get the fiscal-cliff legislation passed. Redistricting after the 2010 election put more and more lawmakers into safe districts, meaning they have less incentive to compromise. So it may not be possible for Boehner to get a majority of the majority to back immigration reform.

A crowded agenda: The temporary nature of the deal produced to avert the fiscal cliff means that within the first few months of the year, Congress will have to negotiate a deal to raise the debt ceiling, deal with the sequester, and fund the government. President Obama is also pushing gun control as a top priority. With limited time before legislators start focusing on their 2014 midterm races, there might not be enough oxygen for immigration reform to happen this year as well.

Plain old politics: There’s a reason that immigration reform has failed so many times: It’s a tough political nut to crack, and can bring out ugliness and name-calling on both sides of the aisle. At a Politico Pro event Tuesday, Labrador suggested that Obama wanted a political victory instead of a policy victory—which may be easier if nothing gets done and Republicans get the blame.

That’s not the way Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., a longtime immigration-reform advocate, sees it. “I have had Republicans say they don't want Obama to do a bill because they want flexibility, but if he doesn't do a bill, he's criticized,” she said at the event. She says she’s just waiting for Boehner to get the ball rolling. “It's not that tough, it's just the decision to do it,” she said.

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Our town's like a foreign country: Locals can't cope with all the immigrants, says British mother after TV clash with academic

A mother who tackled a leading historian on live television about immigration insisted last night that her family’s home town has become like a ‘foreign country’.

On BBC1’s Question Time, Professor Mary Beard dismissed stories about the number of migrant workers overwhelming Boston as ‘myths’ and said ‘public services can cope’.

But Rachel Bull, an office manager in Boston, who  was in the audience, immediately challenged the Cambridge University classics professor, claiming hospitals and schools are struggling to cope in the Lincolnshire agricultural town.

Mrs Bull – whose grandparents moved to Britain from Poland after the Second World War – said that she is not against immigration, but believes ministers should reconsider allowing Romanians and Bulgarians unrestricted rights to live and work in the UK from December 2013.

After Professor Beard – known to millions for the BBC2 series Meet the Romans – told Question Time on Thursday night she believed local services in Boston are able to cope, Mrs Bull raised her hand and said: ‘I’m sorry, I really disagree.’

She told the panel, which was sitting in Lincoln: ‘I have a business in Boston, I have family that live in Boston and we’ve got land at Boston and we’ve had major issues with workers who’ve got nowhere to go, camping on our land and we can’t move them off because the police aren’t interested. Boston is at breaking point. All the locals can’t cope any more – the services, doctors’ surgeries, hospitals.

‘I have a family member that’s a midwife at Boston Pilgrim Hospital. The facilities are at breaking point because of these people coming into the country and nothing is being done. You go down to Boston High Street and it’s just like you’re in a foreign country. And it’s got to stop.’

Yesterday Mrs Bull said that Boston, which has a population of around 61,000, is too small to cope with such a large number of migrants, now thought to number 9,000.

She added: ‘The problem is we’re not like these politicians or other people on television, we’re on the frontline. I’ve not been to university, I’m just a 35-year-old who spoke from the heart.’

Mrs Bull, whose  family has a retirement home business, said she is worried that more migrants from Romania and Bulgaria will make the problems worse.  She said many workers head to the area on the promise of work, but end up without employment or money.

Mrs Bull, who has a 10-year-old son, said: ‘They are going to come to Boston because of the landworkers, the farms and agriculture, that’s where they would get work.

‘But we’ve got so many homeless on the streets, this town has so many problems that are just being swept under the carpet and the locals are crying out. Someone needs to help us.

‘I don’t want it to be about them and us. We all want to work together as one, but when resources are stretched that’s when the animosity starts, and we don’t want that.’ Mrs Bull, who now lives elsewhere in Lincolnshire, said her family has had repeated problems with migrants camping on their land and that it has been impossible to get help from the authorities and police to move them.

'I don't want it to be about them and us... but when resources are stretched that's when the animosity starts, and we don't want that'

She said: ‘My dad and brother used to go there every day as my dad speaks Polish, to explain to them that they have to move on because we were getting complaints from environmental health, and local residents were complaining about the mess they were leaving. There were empty bottles, human faeces, needles.

‘We felt sorry for them as there was a young couple who had been promised work, they’d been dropped off in  Boston, had their passports taken off them, they had no money, and they were just left stranded.  ‘We gave them a bit of money for them to get some food and drink to help them out, but the numbers just grew.’

Mrs Bull’s grandfather was a flight sergeant who fought for Britain, flying Lancaster Bombers and Mosquitoes.

She said her family is proud of its background and enjoy pierogi – traditional dumplings – from the local Polish shops.

She said: ‘We just want help from the Government, and we want them to reconsider when the Romanians and the  Bulgarians come in.’

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Labour got it wrong on immigration, admits Miliband

Ed Miliband has suggested he could limit foreigners’ rights to benefits in the UK as he apologised for Labour’s failures on immigration.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme Mr Miliband admitted that the last Labour government was not “sufficiently alive to people's concerns” over immigration.

The Labour leader said his party got “the numbers wrong” when estimating the number of migrants who would flock to the UK when restrictions on movements from Poland and other Eastern European countries were lifted in 2004.

He suggested that he would in future consider limiting immigrants' rights to benefits in the UK.

“We didn’t get this right in government because I think we underestimated the impact,” Mr Miliband said. “We did get the numbers wrong… I don’t think we were sufficiently alive to people’s concerns once people had come into this country.”

He made the comments as MigrationWatch suggested that 250,000 migrants from Bulgaria and Romania could head to the UK for work when working restrictions are lifted at the end of the year.

MigrationWatch said 50,000 migrants a year for the next five years could try to come to settle in the UK, based on analysis of the numbers who came from Poland and other eastern European countries into the UK after 2004.

Ministers have repeatedly refused to give estimates on how many Romanians and Bulgarians will come to the UK when restrictions are lifted on December 31 this year.

Mr Miliband said immigrants' rights to benefits in the UK “should be looked at” in the future.

“Yes, that is an issue that should be looked at,” Mr Miliband said. “Of course that’s an issue that should be looked at, the length of entitlement to benefits and how quickly people can get them.

“All of these issues would be on the table as we seek to manage our relationship with the European Union, and as we seek to manage migration. I actually think that diversity helps our country. But it can’t just work for some and not for all.”

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph Ion Jinga, the Romanian Ambassador to London, suggested that the number migrants from his country will be in the low tens of thousands, possibly as low as 10,000 a year, and nothing like the hundreds of thousands of Poles who came to live in the UK after 2004.

Mr Jinga said: “It is totally ungrounded to circulate in the media that hundreds of thousands of Romanians will come, it will be an invasion.

"‘They will take our jobs, they will take our houses’. Come on! If it was not related to real human beings I would consider it to be a joke.”

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Up to 70,000 Romanian and Bulgarian migrants a year ‘will come to Britain’ when controls on EU migrants expire

Up to 70,000 Bulgarians and Romanians will travel to Britain each year when they finally gain open access to the jobs  market, a report claims today.

Almost 29million people from the two countries will be free to work in Britain from the end of this year when temporary controls on new EU migrants expire.

But although ministers have their own estimate of the scale of the influx, they refuse to reveal it.

The figure is likely to be the crucial factor in deciding whether the Government will hit the Prime Minister’s goal of cutting net migration – the difference between those arriving and leaving each year – to ‘tens of thousands’

The report by the pressure group MigrationWatch says Romanians and Bulgarians will add between 30,000 and 70,000 to our population in each of the next five years. This is partly based on the events of 2004 when immigration soared after Poland and seven other nations joined the EU.

The report estimates an average of 50,000 Romanians and Bulgarians will arrive here each year, a total of 250,000.

But it warns the figure could soar if Roma gipsies or the nearly 1million Romanians already in other EU countries also come.

Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, but the number who could take jobs here was capped at 25,000 for low-skilled workers. That limit expires this year.

The study explains why Britain is likely to be attractive to Romanians and Bulgarians. Both are relatively poor with a minimum wage of around £1 an hour, compared to £6.19 here, and income per head of about a fifth of Britain’s. In addition, destinations such as Spain, Italy and France have high youth unemployment.

The UK also offers full benefits when immigrants find work, including housing and child benefit and child tax credit.

MigrationWatch chairman Sir Andrew Green said: ‘It is not good enough to duck making an estimate of immigration. It is likely to have significant consequences for housing and services. It will also add to the competition young workers face.’

David Cameron indicated he did not have confidence in Government figures, saying the estimated influx of around 14,000 Poles in 2004 turned out to be ‘ridiculously low’.

The Home Office said it was looking at ‘factors that may encourage EU nationals to come to the UK’.

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1,500 foreign criminals 'held beyond sentence' in Britain

Britain is being forced to pay tens of millions of pounds to keep nearly 1,500 foreign criminals behind bars beyond the term of their sentence as they fight deportation.

The cost could reach the equivalent of £55 million a year as more than 500 foreign prisoners are held in jails after their sentences should have ended while almost 1,000 are being kept in immigration removal centres, figures showed.

Prime Minister David Cameron pledged nearly two years ago to put an end to agreements that mean foreign offenders cannot be returned home without their consent.

Tory MP Priti Patel, who obtained the figures through a parliamentary question, said the number of foreign criminals who can not be deported showed the Government needed to scrap the Human Rights Act.

“Ministers must remove dangerous foreign criminals quickly from Britain,” she said.

“Taxpayers should not be paying for foreign offenders to remain in the UK after their prison sentence has ended.  “It’s a disgrace they’re allowed to remain here for such a long time, which is only made worse by the Human Rights Act which must be scrapped so we can send foreign criminals back home as quickly as possible.”

Ms Patel went on: “There’s no doubt that the Government wants to do more to remove foreign criminals from Britain.

“But we have to look at issues like the Human Rights Act which clearly hinders them from doing that.  “We can no longer sit back because clearly it’s having a serious impact on the number of foreign criminals in the country.”

Mark Harper, the Immigration Minister, said: “In September 2012, 547 foreign national offenders were detained by the UK Border Agency in prisons following completion of their custodial sentence.  “A further 919 foreign national offenders were detained beyond the end of their sentence in immigration removal centres.’

He could not say for how long each prisoner had been detained.

However, the latest figures from the Prison Reform Trust showed the average number of days taken to remove a foreign prisoner at the end of their sentence has fallen from 131 days in 2008 to 77 in 2011.

Each prison place costs an average of almost £38,000 a year, while immigration detention costs £102 per night, the trust’s figures also showed.

The number of foreign criminals awaiting deportation was released on Tuesday as ministers signed a new deal to ensure a wave of Albanian prisoners held in England and Wales will be sent back to their home country to finish their sentences.

The move, which is expected to save taxpayers around £25 million over the next 10 years, should see the first batch of prisoners deported in around two months time.

It is the first agreement providing for transfer from the UK to outside the European Union and Albanian nationals make up the 16th highest foreign national population in English and Welsh prisons.

A total of 77 out of nearly 200 Albanian prisoners who are currently eligible for transfer under the agreement between the two nations have been referred to the UK Border Agency for deportation, the Ministry of Justice said.

Jeremy Wright, the Prisons Minister, said: “The British Government wants more foreign national prisoners to serve their sentences in their home country.”

In April 2010, there were 701 foreign offenders detailed in jail after their sentence, which fell to 516 in April 2011 but rose again to 552 in the same month in 2012, the figures revealed.

The number of people held in immigration detention centres after completing a prison sentence has fallen from 1,213 in April 2010 to 812 in April 2012.

SOURCE





Immigration Enforcement Law Proposed in Montana

It’s not a magnet for undocumented immigrants. And that's just the way at least one Montana lawmaker likes it.  State Rep. David Howard, a Republican known well in Montana for his take-no-prisoners stance on illegal immigration, is determined to keep the state nicknamed “Big Sky Country” as the last place any undocumented immigrant would want to call home.

Howard is pushing a bill that calls on government agencies across the state to enforce federal immigration laws.

Howard told the Montana House Judiciary Committee on Monday that his bill, HB 50, ensures local governments will enforce immigration laws and not turn a blind eye to undocumented immigrants.

Howard said that some cities in other parts of the United States barred their police officers and other public agency workers from inquiring about immigration status. Montana, he told the committee, had to make sure it protected itself against that ever happening within its borders.

His measure, he said, would send a message a message to undocumented immigrants that they are not welcome in Montana. “It creates a defense in wonderful Montana where they won’t come here … all this does is to protect Montanans,” he told the committee. His office did not return various attempts for comment from Fox News Latino.

Montana’s small foreign-born population is mainly Latinos, though many Canadians have settled there too. The Latino population is about 28,565, or 3 percent of the total state population, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Howard’s move runs counter to trends across the nation that have seen a softening by Republicans on illegal immigration, as well as less clamor at the state level to pass immigration laws.

In 2011, 30 state legislatures introduced more than 50 bills similar to that of Arizona, which, among other things, calls on police to check the immigration status of a person they have stopped for another reason and whom they suspect of being in the country unlawfully. 

But in 2012, after court challenges blocked parts of many such laws, and as public support for these measures waned, only five states – Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Rhode Island and West Virginia – considered immigration bills.  None were enacted, according to the National Council of State Legislatures.

On the political front in recent years, many GOP leaders adopted a hard-line position on illegal immigration that was similar to the one embraced by Howard’s in Montana. But after that approach – which dominated much of the Republican primary and debates – was blamed as a key reason for many Latinos walking away from the GOP, the party has softened its tone.

Many Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, have pledged to soften their positions since the Nov. 6 election, in which the vast majority (71 percent) of Latino voters chose President Obama over the GOP challenger, Mitt Romney.
Echoing many other Republicans, Boehner said he would consider proposals for comprehensive immigration reform, which would include tightened enforcement as well as a pathway to legalization for certain undocumented immigrants.

Some Republican leaders expressed dismay over Howard’s proposal.
“It’s amazing that after everything we went through, after our terrible performance with Latino voters in the election, that you would still have some Republicans who would be willing to present this type of legislation,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a Washington, D.C.-based group.

“If it passes, it will not help the Republican Party.”
“Republicans who are pro-immigrant have to come forward and condemn those laws,” said Aguilar, a former Homeland Security Department official in the George W. Bush administration. “What killed us before was that Republicans who were pro-immigrant remained silent.”

Proponents of strict immigration measures praised Howard’s proposal.  “Rep. Howard’s bill ensures common sense state-federal enforcement practices for those of us who believe in the rule of law and the restoration of an immigration law that works,” said Dan Stein, director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, based in Washington D.C. “Americans are tired of paying for the same old political games designed to reward, promote and encourage illegal immigration. We applaud his efforts.”

Montana has taken on illegal immigration before; in November, voters approved a measure requiring proof of legal U.S. residency in order to receive public services. A measure similar to HB 50 cleared the state legislature two years ago, but former Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoed it, calling it unnecessary in Montana.

Immigration advocacy groups in Montana say they are worried about Howard’s latest proposal, given the approval that voters gave to the referendum measure in November.  “Montana does not have an immigration problem,” said Shahid Haque-Hausrath, executive director of the Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance. “Montana is one of the states with the least number of immigrants – documented or undocumented.”

SOURCE