British National Party UK Immigration News Bulletin w/c June 25, 2007
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1. BRITISH WORKERS DENIED JOBS
BECAUSE THEY CAN'T SPEAK POLISH

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462911&in_page_id=1770

British job-seekers are being refused work because they do not speak Polish, it has been claimed. The influx of Eastern European workers means the language is now vital for jobs in agriculture, says MP Malcolm Moss. His North East Cambridgeshire constituency has seen the arrival of a huge number of migrant workers to pick fruit and vegetables, as well as fill other low-paid jobs in packing and food processing plants. Many of the farms and companies involved rely on local job agencies or gangmasters to supply workers. Mr Moss told yesterday how a constituent had been denied work at one factory because she did not speak Polish. ‘A woman came to my surgery to tell me about her daughter's experience when she was looking for work,’ he said. ‘The daughter was aged 18 or 19 and had been to the job centre, where there was little work. ‘Instead she was told to try the local factories in person. ‘They, in turn told her they did not recruit directly and referred her on to a gangmaster who held the contract to supply the staff.’ Mr Moss added: ‘This particular gangmaster told the woman,

'If you don't speak Polish I can't put you on the assembly line, because they all speak Polish. ‘They won't accept you, and you won't be able to communicate with them anyway’. ‘This is obvious discrimination. It is no wonder that youth unemploymentis on the rise.’ Mr Moss, a Tory MP, said the incident was reported to him at a constituency surgery early last year. He did not remember the woman's name or the factory involved. He raised the incident publicly during a House of Commons debate on the effect of immigration in Cambridgeshire last week. Mr Moss said it was indicative of the problems caused by large-scale immigration in his area. ‘It is not just Polish workers’, he said, ‘there are also Estonians, Lithuanians and others. ‘Local people cannot get jobs in the factories in which historically they worked. I have tried each and every way to find a solution to the problem. ‘Where have the indigenous population gone?

These are people who do not have cars and cannot travel to find a job, so where are they in the local community?’ Mr Moss said it was no good arguing that the migrants were only taking the jobs that locals didn't want. ‘In my constituency, they are doing jobs that my people did a few years ago. http://www.bnp.org.uk/shopping/excalibur/item.php?id=691Let us not kid ourselves - there is displacement.’ He also called for action to tackle gangmasters who exploit Eastern European workers by bringing them to the county, paying them poverty wages, and making them live in crowded accommodation at exorbitant rents. Figures released last month revealed a massive influx of immigrants to Britain from the former Eastern Bloc since 11 countries including Poland, Estonia and Lithuania, joined the EU in 2004. Around 640,000 Eastern Europeans, most of them Poles, have registered to work in Britain. But the figure could be as high as 800,000, experts believe, because in most cases the Government keeps no record of the self- employed, spouses or children.

2. HOME OFFICE ACTIVELY PROMOTING IMMIGRATION

There are, of course, no ‘skills shortages’ in our economy, only employers unwilling to pay the going rate for the skills they want to employ.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1951412.ece

Britain is to be actively promoted by the Government as a destination for migrants who will fill skills shortages in the economy, the Home Office said yesterday. Entrepreneurs and trade-related businesses are to be encouraged to head for Britain, while the existing Indian and Chinese communities are to be helped to access financial services to expand trade with India and China. The move to market Britain as a ‘migration destination’ comes despite the Immigration Minister admitting that the scale of recent migration had unsettled the country. But yesterday’s Home Office paper on managing global migration said that promoting Britain would be necessary in a world in which there would be increasing competition for migrants and tourists. ‘We need to act internationally so that the UK remains attractive to those who can contribute to our economy,’ the paper said.

The Government is to introduce a points system for people wishing to work and study, which the paper said would be promoted worldwide. The decision to present Britain as a country actively seeking the brightest and the best comes three days before the first meeting of the new Migration Impact Forum, which is to look at the social as well as economic effects of immigration. Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, told The Times: ‘This is not a dogmatic document. The message is not that we are slamming shut the door.’ Mr Byrne said that Britain’s Indian and Chinese communities could be important to help to expand Britain’s investments in the two countries. They could help to expand trade in financial, legal and business services. ‘The Indian and Chinese diaspora in the UK will be an important bridgehead into those two great growth markets of the future. Migrants’ knowledge of their home countries’ markets is as important as personal or business contacts.’ Ministers also plan to share more information about immigrants with overseas police and security agencies to prevent foreign criminals and immigration offenders from entering the country.

3. LIMITS ON WORKERS MIGRATING FROM EASTERN EUROPE MAY END

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1963902.ece

Curbs on the number of Romanians and Bulgarians allowed to enter Britain to seek work may be lifted by the end of the year. Home Office ministers will consider a relaxation or end to quotas imposed when the states joined the European Union in January. The curbs, including a cap on the number of low-skilled workers, were set last October by John Reid, the Home Secretary, amid mounting public concern at levels of immigration. A Home Office document published today opens the way to allowing in more Bulgarians and Romanians. The paper says that a new Migration Impacts Forum, which meets for the first time today, will review the number of people who have come from both countries since January, where they are working and whether there is a demand from industry for more low-skilled workers.

Ministers plan to make a decision on whether to ease or lift restrictions at some stage in the last three months of the year. The paper also suggests that regional lists of skills shortages should be produced, with the aim of encouraging migrants to travel to those areas. But Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, made clear that the new forum and Government would not just listen to the views of business about allowing in more migrants.’Immigration policy must be set in Britain’s national interest, not based on the needs of any one group,’ he said. ‘It is important that we involve and understand the experience of people from the front line, from local authorities, the health sector and businesses.’ The Home Office quotas were resisted by the Foreign Office and resented by Bulgaria and Romania, especially as Britain had allowed unrestricted access to jobs by citizens of other east European states joining the EU in 2004.

The number of low-skilled workers allowed from the two states was set at 19,750 and they are only allowed to work in food processing and agriculture. The only others who can come are highly skilled workers, students, those with specialist skills which cannot be met by resident labour and the self-employed. Figures published last month showed nearly 8,000 Bulgarians and Romanians came to work in Britain in the first three months of this year, plus 2,400 who joined the seasonal agricultural workers’ scheme. Ministers have come under pressure from the National Farmers’ Union for the quotas to be eased to allow more migrants to become pickers. The union said that there had been a fall in the number of people from Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania willing to work in the sectors. Getting in

The Migration Impact Forum is made up of 14 people, representing police, magistracy, education authorities, local government, business, neighbourhoods and refugees It will look at the effect of immigration on housing, education, health, crime and community cohesion It will influence how the new points-based immigration system works Each potential immigrant will be awarded points based on earning power, qualifications and demand for skills in job market The forum will be able to influence the ‘pass mark’ and whether it is raised or lowered, depending on conditions in Britain The points system is due to begin some time in the first quarter of 2008 A second body, the Migration Advisory Committee, will provide the Government with advice on where migration is needed

4. SHOULD WE LIMIT IMMIGRANTS TO EUROPEANS?

The BNP’s ideas are clearly going mainstream. Only a year ago, this kind of article would have been accused of promoting racism and deemed unfit for publication.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/minette_marrin/article1942934.ece

For years the baleful shade of Enoch Powell silenced debate about immigration numbers, however rational. Playing the numbers game, as it was called, was always associated with the even more shameful misdemeanour of playing the race card. As recently as November 2003, David Blunkett as home secretary blithely announced that he could not see the need for a limit on immigrants, nor did he think there was a maximum number of people that could be housed in this country. This astonishingly silly comment passed almost without protest; it was expressing the unthinking orthodoxy of the day. It was fortunate perhaps that Blunkett and the government believed that numbers didn’t matter, since they hadn’t the slightest idea what the numbers were. The director of enforcement and removals at the Immigration and Nationality Directorate admitted last year that he had not ‘the faintest idea’ how many illegal immigrants were living here. Not only has the government lost control of this country’s boundaries; until recently it didn’t think that mattered. How quickly things change in politics. Now even the most right-on Labour figures are playing the numbers game, with the race card up their sleeves.

Last month Margaret ‘Enver’ Hodge appeared to be doing just that with her announcement that indigenous people in her constituency of Barking felt justly aggrieved that they could not get council housing, while recent immigrants could. They had indeed ‘a legitimate sense of entitlement’ that should not be overridden by new immigrants. The wind was clearly changing. Sure enough, last week numbers became mentionable again, officially. Ruth Kelly, the minister for communities and local government, issued a startling report by the Commission on Integration and Cohesion. Integration indeed. Until recently integration was a dirty word, almost as sinister as assimilation. This report announced findings that must be startling to anyone who has tried hard to toe the multi-culti line. It says that black and Asian Britons - nearly half of them - think we have let in too many immigrants. Almost 70% of everyone questioned by a Mori poll for the commission thought so, including 47% of Asian and 45% of black respondents. The poll also showed that 56% of respondents believed some groups - mainly immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees - received unfair priority in the allocation of housing, health services and education. Respondents were ‘very sensitive about freeloading by other groups’. At the same time only 36% believe immigration is good for the economy. It is hard to know what to make of the idiocy of this government, discovering so late in the day the consequences of its wilfully ignorant and undemocratic immigration policies.

Nevertheless one should be thankful for small blessings. There are a few. For one thing, because it’s now official that so many ethnic minority Britons are worried about immigration, the race card has in effect been torn up and thrown away. One can hardly accuse ethnic minorities of playing it. Another blessing is that multiculturalism has suddenly and rather sneakily been dumped. Late in the day ministers are discovering what should have been blindingly obvious. The dogma of multiculturalism has made immigration and race relations much more painful and difficult than they need have been. The social policies based on it have kept people in ghettos and bred mistrust and suspicion. So it’s as you were, then, with multiculturalism. Now at long last we have integration and cohesion. Let’s hope it’s not too late to undo some of the damage. Kelly’s report makes some sensible suggestions, none the worse for being ridiculous U-turns.

The policy of providing masses of translators and translations for countless languages is to be dumped. It has meant that newcomers are not obliged to learn English, and frequently don’t, which means they are unable to integrate even if they wanted to; they can live here deaf and dumb to the rest of us. Good riddance to it. However, changes such as this, no matter how sensible, fail to address the central question of numbers. It ought always to have been self-evident that numbers matter; to think otherwise is to believe that a raft will never sink no matter how many people clamber onto it. Of course immigration is to be welcomed, or at least tolerated. Of course immigrants have done great things for this country. Of course there is a moral argument for rich people in favour of taking in poorer foreigners.

And of course asylum seekers deserve asylum. All the same, this small and populous country cannot possibly accept the many millions who would like to come here. This government, or its successor, ought to be bold enough to consider openly what might be the optimum number of people living here - or at least the number beyond which more would be intolerable. Some think we have already reached it, to judge from letters to this paper last week about housing. Most do not, but some day we certainly will, unless immigration is brought under civilised and thoughtful control. No one would wish to turn away genuine asylum seekers. No one can turn away migrants from the European Union, whether we wish to or not. The result is that we already have far more prospective immigrants than we could hope to accommodate. The number of genuine asylum seekers is limitless and the number of EU migrants, with incontestable rights to settle here, is as good as limitless. Surely it follows that the group that morally or legally has less right to come here is therefore the immigrants who are neither EU nationals nor spouses of Britons. So, no immigrants except asylum seekers and Europeans?

There is nothing racist about this suggestion; plenty of Europeans, and most asylum seekers, are of non-European ethnic antecedents. There are Moroccan Frenchwomen or Indonesian Dutchmen; Europe has become a melting pot. Certain exceptions could be made, as ever, for immigrants who would bring exceptional wealth or skills with them. It is, at the very least, time for the government to talk openly and fearlessly about numbers.

5. CZECH POLICE START CHECKING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS

Too bad our own government isn’t this sensible!

http://launch.praguemonitor.com/en/112/czech_national_news/8549

The Czech foreigners' police have checked some 1000 people within a nation-wide control operation of illegal immigrants staying in the Czech Republic that was launched today, Nova Television reported. The goal of the checks that are connected with the Czech Republic's planned integration with the Schengen area is to limit the number of illegal immigrants. Nova said that of the 1000 people checked dozens will have problems since they did not have proper documents and health insurance. Several wanted persons have been arrested by the police during the checks. Nova said that 300 policemen were involved in the checks that took place in Prague, Ceske Budejovice, south Bohemia, Plzen, west Bohemia, Hradec Kralove, east Bohemia, and the Usti nad Labem region, north Bohemia and will continue on Friday. During the operation, the police checked marketplaces, hostels, construction sites and factories. ‘Like today's operation many others that will follow in the near future are directly connected with the Czech Republic's entry in the Schengen area,’ foreigner and border police spokeswoman Katerina Jirgesova told Nova. According to Nova, the operation in Prague lasted about three hours and police arrested seven people - four foreigners lacked personal documents and three were nationally wanted. Two Ukrainians without health insurance were find 500 crowns each.

6. OKLAHOMA PASSES TOUGH IMMIGRATION BILL

Another sign of the ongoing revolt against immigration in the States. Americans are lucky enough to have state governments with some ability to defy the stupidity of their central government.

http://www.star-telegram.com/legislature/story/144166.html

While a stack of anti-illegal immigration bills died in the Texas Legislature this year, Oklahoma lawmakers passed a law that cuts off illegal immigrants' access to driver's licenses and many government benefits. ‘The state ought not to be in the business of providing benefits to people who are not here legally,’ said Oklahoma Rep. Randy Terrill, the Republican who wrote the bill. Terrill will speak to an anti-illegal immigration group in Dallas tonight. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 1,000 immigration-related bills and resolutions have been filed in the 50 states. Some Texas cities have passed anti-illegal immigration ordinances. Oklahoma's House Bill 1804, signed by the governor in May, is considered one of the toughest immigration laws in the nation. Among other things, it will: End illegal immigrants' access to state benefits, including college scholarships. Empower law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of people they arrest for felonies and drunken driving. Consider illegal immigrants charged with felonies and some other crimes a flight risk and deny them bail. Allow fired workers to sue if their former employers have an illegal immigrant doing the same or similar work. Will a tough law in Oklahoma push illegal immigrants into Texas? ‘Boy, I sure hope so,’ Terrill said.

Hispanic groups have their doubts. Immigrants become too attached to places where they put down roots to be dislodged by new laws, said Evan Bacalao, a research associate at the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. If anything, he said, the legislation will push Hispanics to become more active in state politics. Texas' difference

Texas and Oklahoma share a border, but their political environments could hardly be more different. A little more than a third of Texas' 23.5 million residents are Hispanic, and their representation is organized into powerful interest groups. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund's San Antonio office keeps a close eye on the Legislature. And 43 of Texas' 182 lawmakers, including some who are not Hispanic, are members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. In 2001, Texas became the first state to offer illegal immigrants in-state tuition and state financial aid for college. Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, said many members of the group are ‘desperately seeking workers,’ so they joined Hispanic lawmakers to oppose anti-illegal immigration bills this year. Employers have said huge labor shortages exist in industries such as trucking, welding and restaurants.

In Oklahoma, no such alliance exists.

Hispanics comprised only 6 percent of the state's 3.5 million residents in 2005, according to the Census Bureau, and the Oklahoma Legislature has no Hispanic lawmakers. ‘The Latino community in Oklahoma is new,’ said Rey Madrid, Oklahoma state director for the League of United Latin American Citizens. The Oklahoma State Chamber took a neutral position on Terrill's bill when it was changed from requiring employers to screen all employees for citizenship or immigration status to screening all new hires, spokesman Mike Seney said. Public opinion had sufficiently jelled, Terrill said. ‘House Bill 1804 is a model bill for the state and even the nation, if they will just take the hint,’ he said.

Oklahoma is not alone. Other states are also cracking down on illegal immigration.

In Colorado, bills signed into law last year cut off welfare benefits to illegal immigrants and require people applying for professional licenses to show proof of citizenship or legal immigration status. The Georgia Legislature passed a bill last year that, among other things, requires a person to show proof of legal status or citizenship before receiving certain state benefits, such as welfare, and requires employers to participate in a federal work-authorization program that checks people's citizenship or immigration status. And in Texas, Farmers Branch voters approved an ordinance May 12 that would ban landlords from renting to illegal immigrants. But the ordinance has been challenged in court by a coalition of Hispanic groups and businesses. The strong demand for such legislation comes from illegal immigrants' perceived burden on state and local governments, said Tony Payan, a University of Texas at El Paso political science professor. ‘I think the [states] are saying, 'Look, we cannot bear the burden on our taxpaying citizens when the benefits are going elsewhere,'‘ Payan said. ‘That is what really stings local communities.’ Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, who filed bills to stem illegal immigration, said that's what constituents tell him. ‘Fifty percent of my e-mails have to do with illegal aliens,’ Berman said. ‘People are outraged that nothing is being done.’ Anti-illegal immigration meeting State Rep. Randy Terrill, the author of Oklahoma's tough new anti-illegal immigration law, will speak to Citizens for Immigration Reform at 7 tonight at Northaven United Methodist Church, 11211 Preston Road in Dallas. The meeting is open to the public.

7. ESSENTIAL READING

http://www.bnp.org.uk/shopping/excalibur/item.php?id=691

OverCrowded Britain

by Ashley Mote MEP

Description:

Foreword by Lord Stoddart of Swindon Postscript by Trevor Colman, former police superintendent, Devon and Cornwall Constabulary Political correctness has hi-jacked our freedom to discuss one of the burning issues of the day - immigration. OverCrowded Britain will inevitably be condemned by the politically-correct, few of whom, Ashley Mote suggests, will bother to read it first. Which is why he argues for a full, open and - if necessary - controversial debate on immigration.

2003, Paperback, 132pp