News / International
More action needed on illegal immigration in the UK: report
20 Apr 2011 at 09:21hrs | Views
Peter Solomon, 46, is a former trade union representative who spent 17 years in the transport sector. He is a hardworking taxpayer and father-of-three who, until recently, worked as a security guard in Manchester where he rented a flat. He is also an illegal immigrant.
Solomon, a former train conductor, fled Zimbabwe in 2005 in fear for his life after threats from President Robert Mugabe's supporters and allegations that he was disloyal. He sold his belongings to buy a Malawian passport for $1,000, knowing that Malawians did not then need UK visas. However, his use of the passport backfired as he was refused asylum last year on the grounds he is not Zimbabwean and should return to Malawi.
After a spell in detention, he is awaiting his appeal in London, supported by the government's National Asylum Support Service. He cannot work and is on medication for depression. "I'm a professional man, I want to contribute," insists Solomon. "I can work hard and I want to pay tax, it makes no sense."
Hard-hitting research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), highlights how people like Solomon form part of a 618,000-strong underclass in UK society. Illegal, or irregular, immigrants include economic migrants, stowing away to work clandestinely. Yet others fall into illegality, sometimes unwittingly, while some, like Solomon, occupy a grey area. Today's 151-page report, No Easy Options, funded by the Foreign Office, attempts to deal pragmatically with a contentious issue. The report asks not if irregular immigration should be reduced, but how. It is based on 213 interviews with current or former irregular immigrants from 15 countries, including those who have returned home.
The IPPR has abandoned its previous calls for "regularisation" which would involve an amnesty to turn illegal workers into taxpaying citizens. The study instead demands tougher action on those blatantly flouting immigration law, but leniency for "low-risk" individuals who could contribute to the UK or whose children were born in the UK, as well as "special treatment" for immigrants who are effectively stateless because their home country will not allow them to return.
While it concludes that major reductions in illegal immigration are unachievable – irregulars are too well-established – it also calls for co-operation from migrant support groups to return people home. Action is vital, says the report, as irregulars are exploited and have a socio-economic impact, as well as undermining the immigration system's credibility. The annual healthcare bill for irregulars, the report suggests, is £1.2bn.
"Our report is an attempt to steer a middle course between the 'kick them all out' and 'let them all stay' lines of argument," says Tim Finch, the report's co-author and former director of communications at the Refugee Council.
Finch's approach has already provoked controversy. Published a week after David Cameron said the government would cut net migration to the UK to the "tens of thousands" each year rather than hundreds of thousands, the government is seizing upon the harder line from IPPR, which is usually regarded as one of the more progressive thinktanks. Immigration minister Damian Green says: "This report shows why we must crack down on abuse and make it harder than ever to stay in the country illegally." The minister adds: "Let the message be clear, the UK is no longer an easy touch for illegal immigrants, we are determined to find you and remove you."
Some charities, on the other hand, have castigated the report. "It is a sign of how toxic this issue has become that such an approach could be seen as controversial in any way – but positions have become so polarised and so fixed that the report will certainly cause some ripples," Finch says.
Finch's research offers a snapshot of the illegal immigrant population. Those who enter clandestinely are a minority; 60% of those surveyed had overstayed or violated their visa terms. Irregulars also include Australian and Brazilian tourists who overstay their tourist visas, those flouting entry terms by working and failed asylum seekers. Others fall into irregularity by breaching recently changed rules, such as the ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who in the past were granted refugee status but are no longer eligible for asylum. With no legal access to social housing, most illegal immigrants rent privately or stay with friends.
While half of those surveyed had degree-level qualifications, three-quarters were in low-paid cleaning or catering jobs at a level below their skills or education. However, the report also quotes 2007 Office for National Statistics figures suggesting that 35% of non-EU students fill skills gaps by working illegally in public administration, education and health sectors.
The report recommends that more irregulars should be sent home. Just one- fifth of those surveyed say they would take up the government's assisted voluntary return programme. Perhaps most controversially for the third sector, the IPPR calls for migrant support groups to co-operate with enforcement agencies. The authors believe that these groups have "too strong an ethos that return should be resisted at all costs".
Reintegration packages
Instead, they propose that support groups deliver £5,000 packages of help for reintegration back home. Packages could be determined according to individual co-operation and include time to settle personal affairs plus a cash element, similar to the government's facilitated returns scheme for foreign prisoners. With annual return rates at only 60,000-65,000, removing all 618,000 irregulars would take 17 years, so removal alone is not the answer. The report says low-risk irregulars – those who have overstayed visas for a short time, for example – might be treated differently so enforcement could focus on high-risk irregulars who commit crimes.
But at the same time, the authors demand special treatment for those who cannot return to their country of origin. "There are grounds for granting exemptions for: people who find themselves in 'legal limbo' situations – such as some British overseas citizens; people who are stateless (that is, not accepted as citizens by any other country); or refused asylum seekers who cannot be removed because there are no safe routes home or the security situation in their home country is manifestly too dangerous," the report states.
This includes the UK's thousand or so ethnically Chinese Malaysians who mistakenly believed their British overseas citizenship enabled them to live here. Stricter immigration rules in both the UK and Malaysia mean they are stateless: no longer able to obtain UK residency, but having given up their Malaysian citizenship.
Hendy Lau, 35, a trained accountant from Malaysia, arrived in England in 2003. Lau, a British overseas citizen, rents a room in Wokingham, Berkshire, and works in a restaurant. He pays tax but says he feels like a criminal. His wife is in Malaysia with their year-old daughter, conceived during a visit to the UK. Lau says: "I can't work properly, I can't travel, I've never held my daughter. I just want the right not to be in limbo, not to be invisible."
Then there are those like Joy Santos, a 60-year-old from the Philippines who arrived in 2006, but whose visa has now expired. She works illegally as a cleaner in London and sticks to her tight-knit Filipino network for fear of detection. Santos, who sends cash home so her daughter can be treated for an autoimmune disease, says she contributes by doing a low-paid, unpopular job: "If we're legalised, we can be at peace. We can pay taxes – we didn't come to create chaos, we came to work."
Too scared to register with a GP for fear of being exposed, if she falls ill, friends and relatives bring over medicines when they visit. She is one of many Filipinos who do not access the NHS. Yet untreated problems can escalate, require emergency treatment and cost the health service more. While the status of people like Santos must be resolved, she is unlikely to be classed as a high-risk irregular immigrant necessitating tough action.
The reaction to today's report among those who support asylum seekers and migrants is lukewarm. Don Flynn, the director of Migrant Rights Network, says the "very modest" recommendations fail to challenge the central argument of those who support immigration control, "namely that states are entitled to counterpoise their wills against the efforts of people to improve their circumstances by migrating".
Others say facilitating voluntary returns dissuades the vulnerable from seeking help and charities already offer realistic advice to clients. Vaughan Jones, chief executive of refugee and migrant support group Praxis, says: "We have a distinctive role as part of a network of protection for vulnerable migrants. If someone has run out of options and there are no other issues of vulnerability, we'd give the option of voluntary return anyway."
One-off regularisation
But Neil Jameson, executive director of Citizens UK, the community organising group behind the Strangers Into Citizens earned regularisation campaign, praises the IPPR study for justifying "one-off regularisation".
"We welcome the view that greater generosity should be granted to irregular families with children born in the UK, and that long-standing bureaucratic issues such as the stateless BOCs from Malaysia need to be resolved."
Today's research aims to strike a practical middle ground between people's right to migrate and a country's right to protect its borders. The government will examine the report keenly but, in light of the immigration crackdown revealed last week, is likely to overlook IPPR's nuanced approach it advocates in favour of its calls for a tougher stance on irregular immigration.
In the meantime, people like Solomon are in limbo: "All I did wrong was to come on a Malawi passport but I cannot go back to Zimbabwe because of the risk. I'm treated like an object and the government regards me as useless."
Some names have been changed.
Solomon, a former train conductor, fled Zimbabwe in 2005 in fear for his life after threats from President Robert Mugabe's supporters and allegations that he was disloyal. He sold his belongings to buy a Malawian passport for $1,000, knowing that Malawians did not then need UK visas. However, his use of the passport backfired as he was refused asylum last year on the grounds he is not Zimbabwean and should return to Malawi.
After a spell in detention, he is awaiting his appeal in London, supported by the government's National Asylum Support Service. He cannot work and is on medication for depression. "I'm a professional man, I want to contribute," insists Solomon. "I can work hard and I want to pay tax, it makes no sense."
Hard-hitting research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), highlights how people like Solomon form part of a 618,000-strong underclass in UK society. Illegal, or irregular, immigrants include economic migrants, stowing away to work clandestinely. Yet others fall into illegality, sometimes unwittingly, while some, like Solomon, occupy a grey area. Today's 151-page report, No Easy Options, funded by the Foreign Office, attempts to deal pragmatically with a contentious issue. The report asks not if irregular immigration should be reduced, but how. It is based on 213 interviews with current or former irregular immigrants from 15 countries, including those who have returned home.
The IPPR has abandoned its previous calls for "regularisation" which would involve an amnesty to turn illegal workers into taxpaying citizens. The study instead demands tougher action on those blatantly flouting immigration law, but leniency for "low-risk" individuals who could contribute to the UK or whose children were born in the UK, as well as "special treatment" for immigrants who are effectively stateless because their home country will not allow them to return.
While it concludes that major reductions in illegal immigration are unachievable – irregulars are too well-established – it also calls for co-operation from migrant support groups to return people home. Action is vital, says the report, as irregulars are exploited and have a socio-economic impact, as well as undermining the immigration system's credibility. The annual healthcare bill for irregulars, the report suggests, is £1.2bn.
"Our report is an attempt to steer a middle course between the 'kick them all out' and 'let them all stay' lines of argument," says Tim Finch, the report's co-author and former director of communications at the Refugee Council.
Finch's approach has already provoked controversy. Published a week after David Cameron said the government would cut net migration to the UK to the "tens of thousands" each year rather than hundreds of thousands, the government is seizing upon the harder line from IPPR, which is usually regarded as one of the more progressive thinktanks. Immigration minister Damian Green says: "This report shows why we must crack down on abuse and make it harder than ever to stay in the country illegally." The minister adds: "Let the message be clear, the UK is no longer an easy touch for illegal immigrants, we are determined to find you and remove you."
Some charities, on the other hand, have castigated the report. "It is a sign of how toxic this issue has become that such an approach could be seen as controversial in any way – but positions have become so polarised and so fixed that the report will certainly cause some ripples," Finch says.
Finch's research offers a snapshot of the illegal immigrant population. Those who enter clandestinely are a minority; 60% of those surveyed had overstayed or violated their visa terms. Irregulars also include Australian and Brazilian tourists who overstay their tourist visas, those flouting entry terms by working and failed asylum seekers. Others fall into irregularity by breaching recently changed rules, such as the ethnic Chinese from Vietnam who in the past were granted refugee status but are no longer eligible for asylum. With no legal access to social housing, most illegal immigrants rent privately or stay with friends.
While half of those surveyed had degree-level qualifications, three-quarters were in low-paid cleaning or catering jobs at a level below their skills or education. However, the report also quotes 2007 Office for National Statistics figures suggesting that 35% of non-EU students fill skills gaps by working illegally in public administration, education and health sectors.
The report recommends that more irregulars should be sent home. Just one- fifth of those surveyed say they would take up the government's assisted voluntary return programme. Perhaps most controversially for the third sector, the IPPR calls for migrant support groups to co-operate with enforcement agencies. The authors believe that these groups have "too strong an ethos that return should be resisted at all costs".
Reintegration packages
Instead, they propose that support groups deliver £5,000 packages of help for reintegration back home. Packages could be determined according to individual co-operation and include time to settle personal affairs plus a cash element, similar to the government's facilitated returns scheme for foreign prisoners. With annual return rates at only 60,000-65,000, removing all 618,000 irregulars would take 17 years, so removal alone is not the answer. The report says low-risk irregulars – those who have overstayed visas for a short time, for example – might be treated differently so enforcement could focus on high-risk irregulars who commit crimes.
But at the same time, the authors demand special treatment for those who cannot return to their country of origin. "There are grounds for granting exemptions for: people who find themselves in 'legal limbo' situations – such as some British overseas citizens; people who are stateless (that is, not accepted as citizens by any other country); or refused asylum seekers who cannot be removed because there are no safe routes home or the security situation in their home country is manifestly too dangerous," the report states.
This includes the UK's thousand or so ethnically Chinese Malaysians who mistakenly believed their British overseas citizenship enabled them to live here. Stricter immigration rules in both the UK and Malaysia mean they are stateless: no longer able to obtain UK residency, but having given up their Malaysian citizenship.
Hendy Lau, 35, a trained accountant from Malaysia, arrived in England in 2003. Lau, a British overseas citizen, rents a room in Wokingham, Berkshire, and works in a restaurant. He pays tax but says he feels like a criminal. His wife is in Malaysia with their year-old daughter, conceived during a visit to the UK. Lau says: "I can't work properly, I can't travel, I've never held my daughter. I just want the right not to be in limbo, not to be invisible."
Then there are those like Joy Santos, a 60-year-old from the Philippines who arrived in 2006, but whose visa has now expired. She works illegally as a cleaner in London and sticks to her tight-knit Filipino network for fear of detection. Santos, who sends cash home so her daughter can be treated for an autoimmune disease, says she contributes by doing a low-paid, unpopular job: "If we're legalised, we can be at peace. We can pay taxes – we didn't come to create chaos, we came to work."
Too scared to register with a GP for fear of being exposed, if she falls ill, friends and relatives bring over medicines when they visit. She is one of many Filipinos who do not access the NHS. Yet untreated problems can escalate, require emergency treatment and cost the health service more. While the status of people like Santos must be resolved, she is unlikely to be classed as a high-risk irregular immigrant necessitating tough action.
The reaction to today's report among those who support asylum seekers and migrants is lukewarm. Don Flynn, the director of Migrant Rights Network, says the "very modest" recommendations fail to challenge the central argument of those who support immigration control, "namely that states are entitled to counterpoise their wills against the efforts of people to improve their circumstances by migrating".
Others say facilitating voluntary returns dissuades the vulnerable from seeking help and charities already offer realistic advice to clients. Vaughan Jones, chief executive of refugee and migrant support group Praxis, says: "We have a distinctive role as part of a network of protection for vulnerable migrants. If someone has run out of options and there are no other issues of vulnerability, we'd give the option of voluntary return anyway."
One-off regularisation
But Neil Jameson, executive director of Citizens UK, the community organising group behind the Strangers Into Citizens earned regularisation campaign, praises the IPPR study for justifying "one-off regularisation".
"We welcome the view that greater generosity should be granted to irregular families with children born in the UK, and that long-standing bureaucratic issues such as the stateless BOCs from Malaysia need to be resolved."
Today's research aims to strike a practical middle ground between people's right to migrate and a country's right to protect its borders. The government will examine the report keenly but, in light of the immigration crackdown revealed last week, is likely to overlook IPPR's nuanced approach it advocates in favour of its calls for a tougher stance on irregular immigration.
In the meantime, people like Solomon are in limbo: "All I did wrong was to come on a Malawi passport but I cannot go back to Zimbabwe because of the risk. I'm treated like an object and the government regards me as useless."
Some names have been changed.
Source - theguardian
