British National Party UK Immigration News Bulletin w/c February 26, 2007
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1. POLICE LET ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ROAM OUR STREETS

http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=1278

POLICE have been told to direct illegal immigrants to the nearest asylum centre – and then let them go. The revelation came as officers in North Wales gave a map to five suspects and told them to go to a centre in Liverpool, without any guarantees they would show up. The Home Office guidance tells police what to do when suspected or known illegal immigrants claim asylum after they are caught. Officials admitted they have no idea how many have been told to make their own way to centres or how many even turn up. It is the latest farce involving Home Secretary John Reid and comes after the Daily Express revealed immigration officers have also been told to let most illegals go because there is no room to detain them. Police around the country are known to be furious and frustrated.

And Cheryl Gillan, Shadow Welsh Secretary, said: ‘I am absolutely -staggered that this appears to be standing Government advice on the treatment of illegal immigrants. Police officers are effectively forced to release anyone they take into custody and give them directions to the nearest asylum screening unit. ‘They are being told to offer the sort of travel advice you’d give to members of the public looking for the nearest railway station or local business. ‘This sort of amateurish approach further undermines public confidence in the Government’s ability to deal with the ongoing problem of illegal immigration.

‘Isn’t this just another farce being played out by the Home Office, but one that this time is threatening the safety and security of people?’ The guidance is provided in the Immigration and Nationality Directorate’s operation enforcement manual which offers advice for agencies – including all police forces – dealing with illegal immigrants. In a section on what to do when someone arrested then claims asylum, it reads: ‘An enforcement office will not always be able to assist the police when suspected illegal entrants come to notice who indicate to the police they wish to claim asylum. ‘Where an enforcement office is unable to offer assistance to the police in interviewing, for example, a group of clandestine illegal entrants, and it is not otherwise intended to bail the individuals or deal with them via faxed notices, the police should be advised to direct them to the nearest asylum screening unit.’ Police in North Wales are understood to have even been faxed a map to give to those claiming asylum to show them how to get to Reliance House in Liverpool – the nearest processing centre.

This was done when officers picked up five suspected illegal immigrants who then claimed asylum. A Home Office spokeswoman insisted the five turned up and their claims are now being dealt with but she could not say how many times that this has happened or how many others around the country have gone missing. Richard Brunstrom, North Wales Chief Constable, is believed to be furious at the guidance and has written a letter of protest to Mr Reid. A North Wales Police spokes-woman said: ‘I can confirm that the Chief Constable wrote a personal letter to the Home Secretary about illegal immigration to North Wales some weeks ago. He is still waiting for an answer.’ Leader of the Liberal group on Liverpool Council, Steve Radford, said: ‘It’s utterly absurd. ‘There should be a system in place where police or the immigration service, or both working together, escort the asylum seeker or potential illegal immigrant to the appropriate processing centre. ‘If the person is not a genuine asylum seeker, then there’s a real potential they will just disappear again – which almost encourages illegal immigration. ‘And if they are a genuine asylum seeker they will need greater assistance and should not be expected to wander around the countryside with a map of a country they are not familiar with.’

The Daily Express revealed a similar farce in 2005 when officials told police in Swindon to release 10 people caught sneaking into the UK because no immigration staff were available. They were given a map and told to make their own way 80 miles to a reporting centre. Last summer a Home Office memo leaked to this newspaper revealed immigration officers have been ordered to let illegal immigrants go because there is no room to detain them. Only failed asylum seekers or foreign national prisoners facing the prospect of deportation should be picked up, the memo said. A spokeswoman for the Home Office said occasions of people being directed to asylum centres were ‘rare’. She said: ‘The Immigration and Nationality Directorate is committed to responding to requests by the police to attend clandestine events whenever and wherever operation-ally possible. ‘On the rare occasions when the IND is unable to attend, the police will record the details of the individuals concerned and pass them directly to the IND. ‘Such occasions might include circumstances where immigration staff are engaged in an operation to target illegal working or removing failed asylum seekers. ‘The issue here is about focusing resources to best effect.’

2. BRITONS MOST ANTI-IMMIGRATION NATION IN EU

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/19/nmigrants119.xml

The influx of Polish builders, plumbers, cleaners and babysitters may have benefited hundreds of British families, but it does not always feel that way to the British. Thousands of East Europeans applied to work in Britain. According to a Harris survey for the Financial Times, Britons now take the most negative view of immigration of any large western European economy. Some 47 per cent of Britons believe migration by workers within the EU has been negative for the economy, almost twice as many as the 24 per cent of people who hold the same view in Spain. Meanwhile, 76pc of British respondents want to tighten border controls and 66pc said there were ‘too many foreigners’ in the country, in both cases more than their counterparts in France, Italy, Spain or Germany.

The root cause of the unhappiness is the massive under-estimate by the Government of the number of East Europeans who would arrive after 2004. Initial predictions of 15,000 had to be rapidly revised and by last August some 427,000, mostly Poles, had formally applied to work in Britain. In response to these concerns, Britain agreed to impose temporary restrictions on workers coming from Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU on January 1. Around one person in 40 of working age in this country is now an immigrant who arrived in the UK in the past two years. That does not include estimates of self-employed workers or illegal immigrants. They could total several hundred thousand. The Home Office admitted that the figure would be nearer 600,000 if self-employed workers - such as builders - were taken into account. Britain remains a popular destination for European migrants - it comes second only to Spain - and it is regarded by respondents as having the healthiest economy, alongside Germany. Former CBI chief Sir Digby Jones has praised immigrant workers, claiming they were often better trained and harder working than their British contemporaries. He said: ‘You cannot blame them if they are prepared to come here and work for wages which, though they may seem low to us, are a lot higher than in their own country.

They come here with the skills we no longer seem to be able to provide with our own workforce. ‘Employers told me that when they recruit from Poland, they get as many people as they need and they always work hard. ‘People coming here should be able to speak English, they should bring a skill with them and they must take part in the transparent economy.’ Sir Digby added: ‘Our tradition of welcoming workers from overseas has generated a tremendous amount of goodwill abroad for the UK and tremendous benefits to our economy. We lose it at our peril.’ The survey also shows that many Europeans are open to the idea of working in another country, providing encouragement to those who believe the EU economy suffers from a lack of US-style labour mobility.

However, the number of people who actually emigrate remains small. The most resistant to the idea of working in another country are the French, whose pessimism about the chance of their lives improving is matched by their refusal to countenance moving abroad for a better life. Such pessimism is widespread, in spite of Europe experiencing a significant economic upturn. Only 10 per cent of respondents thought life in their country was improving, the highest number being in Spain (20pc) and the lowest in France with 5pc. The FT/Harris poll was conducted online by Harris Interactive among a total of 6,561 adults within France, Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the US between January 31 and February 12.

3. WHY BRITONS LEAVE THE UK

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/news/display.var.1218109.0.0.php

ON a wet winter weekend, a tide of 8000 people washed through Emigrate, an exhibition on moving and living abroad. They are part of a human sea which this year will see an estimated 225,000 Britons flood abroad - a 10% increase on 2006. According to organisers of the exhibition at Edinburgh's Royal Highland Centre, many are taking advantage of the fact that ‘the world is your oyster’ and flocking to sunnier climes and the promise of a better quality of life. Spain is top of the list, attracting 40,000 from Britain each year. Mike Schwarz, managing director of the show's organisers, Outbound Media and Exhibitions, said it was not necessarily a better life, or an easier one.

‘There are still divorces, there are still cancers, there are still problems but moving does offer a different life,’ he said. ‘People will come back - that's the other side of it, perhaps about 10 and 20%. You can make it a better life but you have to work at it. You must research it properly. Decide exactly what you want to do.’ However, with more than 200,000 leaving the UK annually, it doesn't seem much is stopping people choosing to make the move. ‘The tide is certainly growing and there is an increasing feeling of discontent in this country,’ Mr Schwarz added. The British weather, loutish behaviour, crime and congestion were all cited as reasons for leaving while Britons were attracted by the promise of more opportunities, better weather, a higher quality of life and the chance to do something different, he said. Undeterred by the weekend's rain, the 8000 would-be emigrants streamed through the doors of the exhibition which focused on long-haul expatriation. Mark Houston, 24, and Maria, 23, from Bellshill, didn't want to come home after spending a year in Australia. ‘We only left because our visa had run out but we are now trying to save up to emigrate,’ said Mr Houston.

The exhibition involved various overseas businesses hoping to recruit UK skilled professionals and he hoped that talking to them would ease the process. ‘I am a carpenter which should make it easier and I'm hoping to sort out a job so Maria can come on my visa,’ Mr Houston added. ‘We haven't jumped into it. We have really thought about it. There are more opportunities, more things to do, a better lifestyle. It seems relatively easy to strike up into business. We want to go now while we have not got mortgage or kids. In fact, we're running away from that.’ Alan Elliot, an Edinburgh bricklayer, had his sights set on New Zealand. Having spent three years working on a range of jobs in Holland, the 26-year-old was no stranger to working abroad and loved the excitement and challenges that it offered. ‘I want to get away from here and I like the thought of New Zealand. It seems like a great country with a great quality of life. It's fun and what I really want to do.’ Steve Sanderson, 38, was heading out to Canada for interviews over Easter. He and his partner, Deborah Mitchell, 37, already had a house sorted out for them and their children. A roofer by trade, Mr Sanderson was confident he could take on any other manual work and hoped to find work soon so they could move quickly. ‘We hope to be over there by the end of the summer if everything is successful,’ he said. With UK immigration constantly on the rise, Mr Sanderson said one reason for leaving was that he did not want to be a minority in his own country but that the weather was also a factor. ‘We never have snow any more.

Canada has snow in the winter and the sun shines in the summer,’ he added. New Zealand was top of the list for Edinburgh couple Kenny and Susan Addison, 30 and 31 respectively, who attended the show with their one-week-old daughter, Alana. They thought the country would be a great place to bring up a child: ‘We were quite seriously considering it and now we have a baby there is someone else to think about as well.’ Working for the Bank of New York, Mr Addison hoped to be able to set up a job in finance before setting off. ‘I think we want to go for the quality of life. There is a great outdoors culture and a lot of money has been invested in sport. ‘We want to move before our daughter is in school. It might take a few months, it might take a couple of years.’ Mrs Addison added: ‘We're not saying you don't get the same problems as here but we are thinking of her (Alana's) future.’ However, a warning was sounded by Alistair Morris who emigrated to Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, last March but hated it so much he returned in the summer. Employed as a psychiatrist, he was depressed by the work, which mostly involved amphetamine-induced psychosis in an area that had the highest suicide rate in the country. ‘I was completely on my own and felt very isolated,’ the 30-year-old said.

‘There is not much to do there as it is all about the outdoors and I am not very outdoorsy or sporty. I would try and talk to people but found it very insular. I was miserable and couldn't wait to get back. ‘I realised Scotland wasn't that bad after all. I did try to stick with it and the people I met were nice but they didn't have the same sense of humour. I even missed the weather.’ However, he did admit that perhaps he had simply been unlucky and that he was the only person he knew not to have loved New Zealand. He advised being very careful about research. ‘Everyone has their rose-tinted spectacles on and thinks it's amazing but I just want to warn them that it's not all like that.’ In figures: More than 200,000 Britons are expected to emigrate this year, a 10% rise on last year. Countries in order of popularity are Spain, France and the US; then, all equal, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - the last three believed to have about 20,000 Britons each.

According to shelteroffshore.com, 8% of the British population lives abroad, a far higher percentage than the French, Italians, Americans or Canadians. According to the Brits Abroad Survey, carried out by the Institute for Public Policy Research and published December 2006, it is estimated that around 2000 people leave the country every week and that about 5.5 million Britons now live abroad. The peak in British migration came in 1966-67 when 468,000 left in two years. The numbers dipped in the 1970s and 1980s but picked up again in the 1990s. In 2005 alone, 198,000 Britons left the UK for a new life. Some 41 nations have at least 10,000 British residents, according to the institute's research. South Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America are all pulling Britons in. It is reported that there are more British expats living in Argentina than there are in the Falkland Islands. The rest of Europe is also becoming popular and 10,000 Britons are believed to live part-time in Bulgaria. The survey says migration is very difficult to predict but believes the loss of British citizens may reach between 500,000 and one million over the next five years.

4. MASS IMMIGRATION RESULT? 5,000 CHILD SEX SLAVES IN UK

http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=134945&version=1&template_id=38&parent_id=20

More than 5,000 children are being forced to work as sex slaves in the UK, including thousands trafficked to this country by criminal gangs, The Independent on Sunday revealed. An important study of global slavery exposes Britain as a major transit point for the movement of child slaves around the world. Commissioned by social research charity the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the report paints a shocking picture of an international web of gangmasters exploiting children as young as five, as well as vulnerable women. Many are threatened with violence, then sold into the sex trade or forced to become domestic servants, says the report, to be published today. The human trafficking trade now generates an estimated £5bn a year worldwide, making it the second biggest international criminal industry after the drugs trade. Children’s charities in Britain say there has been a ‘dramatic’ rise in referrals of trafficked children to sexual exploitation services.

An investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found that gangs, especially those from Romania and Lithuania as well as Africa, are increasingly targeting Britain because markets in other European countries such as Spain and Italy are saturated. Tony Blair pledged in January this year that he would sign up to a European convention to ‘stamp out’ the ‘evil’ of slavery, which was supposedly abolished 200 years ago next month. His move was in response to fierce lobbying by MPs and human rights charities. However, the report finds that the UK’s response to trafficking is too biased towards law enforcement at the expense of victim protection. It also reveals that many victims are deported to their home country where they face assault from gangs and the threat of being retrafficked.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is urging ministers to draw up policies that treat those in slavery as victims, not as immigration cases. From this month, police forces are being issued with specially adapted iPods. Officers will be able to play to women too afraid to testify against their abusers messages in their own language, reassuring them they will not be arrested. Child protection charities also warn of the second-class status in the system of trafficked children. At least 48 children sold into slavery in Britain are missing, because of lapses in care by officials, according to a recent report by the Ecpat UK, which campaigns against the sexual exploitation of children. Ecpat’s director, Christine Beddoe, said: ‘Child trafficking is a contemporary form of slavery but trafficked children are labelled ‘undeserving’ because they are seen as immigration cases.’ Child trafficking is one of the worst violations of children’s rights, believes Unicef. ‘There remains no specialised safe house for trafficked children or adequate care and support for victims,’ said Sarah Epstein of Unicef UK. MPs are calling on law enforcement agencies to increase their efforts to catch human traffickers by setting up a central database of the DNA samples, gun profiles and fingerprints of those involved in the trade.

Anthony Steen MP, chairman of the All Party Group on Trafficking of Women and Children, said trafficked women and children are still not receiving the protection they deserved. ‘Despite his promise Tony Blair has still not signed up to the convention. In the meantime, these girls who are victims of these gangs are having to look over their shoulders,’ said the Conservative MP for Totnes. The Rowntree study was carried out by the University of Hull along with Anti-Slavery International and the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation. – The Independent

5. GOVERNMENT ABANDONS IMMIGRATION CUT ON FOREIGN DOCTORS

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/5922_1938314,0015002100000000.htm

BRITAIN HAS decided to not apply its new immigration law for the moment granting a temporary reprieve to Indian doctors in the country. The 16,000 doctors from the non-EU countries — of which almost 13,000 are Indians — were facing the prospect of having to leave Britain. But the department of health, under pressure from the BAPIO (British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin), has agreed to keep the new immigration rules in abeyance for the first round of recruitment of training posts in the National Health Service (NHS) this year. The immigration laws were amended in April 2006 under which employers have to prove that they had no appropriate candidates from the UK and EU before offering jobs to non-EU candidates. Welcoming the decision on Sunday, Dr Ramesh Mehta, president of the BAPIO, told the Hindustan Times that all 16,000 doctors would be eligible for consideration as trainees in the first round of recruitment this year, according to the health department’s latest guidelines posted on its website. Short-listing of candidates will be announced on Monday and interviews will take place during the first week of March.

6. SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE BANS BORDER GUARDS FROM ARRESTING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=277062007

THE Scottish Executive has blocked plans to give immigration officers in Scotland the power to arrest suspected illegal immigrants. Immigration officials in all other parts of the United Kingdom will be given the enhanced powers, and Scottish ministers' refusal to follow suit has prompted warnings that Scotland could be more open to illegal immigration. The row emerged from legislation passing through the House of Commons that the government says strengthens the immigration service. The Borders Bill would give Immigration and Nationality Directorate officers powers to detain suspected illegal immigrants when no police officer is present.

The power is being introduced to strengthen immigration staff at small, unpoliced ports and airports. But the Westminster bill triggered lengthy private negotiations between the Home Office, the Executive and the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland. Those talks ended with the Executive refusing to implement the arrest plan, arguing that the new powers are ‘unnecessary’. Scottish ministers cannot ordinarily veto Home Office measures on immigration, which is reserved to Westminster. But government lawyers concluded that bestowing arrest powers would bring immigration officers under the Executive's authority, since policing is devolved.

The Scottish anomaly was exposed by Andrew Mackinlay, a Labour MP from Essex who is campaigning for a dedicated UK-wide border police force. During debates on the Borders Bill, ministers declined repeated requests from MPs to explain the position in Scotland. But in a letter to Mr Mackinlay, Liam Byrne, a Home Office minister, set out the Executive's refusal to implement the plans. ‘Following discussions, the Scottish Executive concluded that the routine presence of police officers at all the international ports in Scotland meant it was unnecessary to provide immigration officers with the powers to intervene against persons liable to arrest by police constables,’ Mr Byrne wrote. Mr Mackinlay warned last night that the Executive's decision risked making Scotland a ‘back door’ into the UK for would-be illegal immigrants. ‘This makes a nonsense of the entire bill. If there is no need for immigration officers to have powers of arrest in Scotland, why do they need them in England, in Wales, in every other part of the UK?’ he asked.

David Mundell, the Conservatives' shadow Scottish secretary, said the Executive's refusal ‘completely undermines’ the UK's immigration policy. A Scottish Executive spokesman said: ‘There is already a police presence in all the international airports and ports in Scotland and, if an immigration officer considered that a person should be detained in the circumstances set out in [the Borders Bill], a police officer could be readily called to deal with the situation. ‘We would be happy to work with the Home Office to ensure that the arrangement works well in practice.