WE'RE A MAGNET FOR MIGRANTS

Britain is Europe's top destination for permanent migrants. A study has revealed that more immigrants settle permanently in Britain than any other country in Europe. The latest figures showed that 397,900 foreigners decided to live here in 2009, second in the world only to the U.S. The figure marked a rise of 14% from the previous year. It was the largest increase in the developed world, at a time when most countries saw dramatic falls in the number of permanent settlers.

The study, from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, said the increase was largely down to family members coming to stay with those already in Britain, and the large number of foreign students living here. The study comes just over a week after Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said a generation of Britons would be condemned to a life on benefits unless immigration rules were tightened.

He said back-to-work schemes would fail without strict controls on incomers, and called on firms to employ British-born people rather than rely on migrant labour. Business leaders responded to his plea by saying British workers had a poor work ethic compared with those from abroad. The OECD report, Trends in International Migration, appears to back up the business leaders’ view. It found Britain is one of the few countries where migrant workers are less likely to end up unemployed than locals.

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the think-tank MigrationWatch UK, said last night the figures proved Labour had made Britain a soft touch for immigration. He said, "Labour’s loss of control of immigration has left us with a situation where our population is growing at the fastest rate for 50 years. The pressure on housing, health and education can only be intensified at a time when Labour left no money to deal with the extra demand."

The OECD report shows Britain is one of the only countries where the level of permanent migration increased in the years after the credit crunch. The number of permanent migrants here is exceeded only by the U.S., where 1.1million people settled permanently, up 2% on the previous year. France had only 178,700 new settlers, down 7% and Germany 197,500, down 13%. In Ireland, the total fell by 42% to 38,900.

The number of people settling in Britain has risen by more than 50% since 2003. The report by the OECD, which represents developed nations, said, "Most countries saw declines in permanent migration in 2009, almost half showing falls of 10% or more." It said Britain actually saw a fall of more than a quarter in the number of people coming for work, but the total of permanent settlers went up because those who had moved here on temporary visas opted to stay, "

It added, "This, along with increases in family migration and in movements for other reasons, more than offset what would have otherwise been a demand-induced decline." Mr Duncan Smith said, "This report confirms that even during the recession, jobs in the UK were going to migrant workers while other countries saw a decline in migrant labour." (Source: Daily Mail, Jul/11)

No sooner had the French destroyed a squalid campsite of immigrants seeking entry into Britain than several others sprang up in its wake. Farewell the Jungle; hello the Wilderness, as one of the new settlements in Calais was immediately dubbed. Clearly this problem isn't going away so long as the UK remains a magnet for economic migrants from all over the globe. They will pay almost any price to people traffickers; endure filth, squalor and disease in the French camps; risk virtually any danger by clinging to the underside of lorries, all in order to gain entry to the promised land of the UK.

We are told it is because these people are poor, although many of them manage to find £9,000 to pay the traffickers to smuggle them into France and if you are unlucky enough to be born in a Middle Eastern slum, the prospect of living in a democratic country in the West is understandably a desirable goal. But neither poverty nor a desire for freedom explain why the migrants elevate the UK above all our European neighbours. Commentators have expended thousands of words attempting to explain the attraction and most seem to have come to the conclusion that it is almost impossibly complex.

It isn't. It couldn't be simpler; so simple in fact that it can be articulated in just a few words by Afridi Kahn, a migrant quoted in newspapers this week after he was evicted from the Calais camp, "In Britain you get a solicitor, pocket money, good accommodation, your health is taken care of. People have rights in Britain. In France you get nothing." Got that? Get into Britain and you'll get free housing, legal advice, food, education, health care and cash in hand, you'll never have to work again.

This concept may be far too complicated for highly-educated politicians and media commentators in the UK to grasp, but in the slums of Kabul and Baghdad it is understood perfectly well. And let us get the terminology right. These people are not refugees. They can't be described as asylum seekers because they have never asked for asylum. Those rounded up at the Jungle were given a choice, return to Afghanistan with £1,700 in your pocket (partially funded by British taxpayers), or claim asylum in France. The vast majority refused both and instead went back onto the streets to start again their attempts to get into the UK.

If these were genuine refugees fleeing persecution they would surely claim asylum in the first free country they escaped to. But in many cases these migrants have travelled across Turkey, Greece and Italy before spending many months in France, all without asking for refugee status. Once in Britain, of course, they will claim asylum. Among the other benefits our country offers is the fact that you are far more likely to be granted asylum in the first place, and, even if you are refused, there is virtually no chance of deportation, unlike our European neighbours. Bill Carmichael

Tens of thousands of asylum seekers have been awarded British residency under a controversial human rights law which allow foreigners to stay because they have a partner or children in this country. Out of 161,000 foreigners allowed to remain in Britain as part of the Government's "back door amnesty", a significant number were ruled to have a case under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the "right to family life". It was this factor that was decisive in winning the right to stay in Britain, rather than any evidence they were genuinely fleeing persecution. In many cases, initial Home Office delays in processing the claims will have been the factor that allowed asylum seekers who entered Britain as young single people the opportunity to start families.

The development exposes the impact of asylum failures under Labour, which triggered a long-running project to clear more than 400,000 asylum cases, dubbed "legacy cases", which had been allowed to fester since the late 1990s. The exercise was heavily criticised in a report by MPs on the all-party Home Affairs Committee. The Home Office has also admitted that some of the people granted leave to remain under the legacy exercise were foreign criminals whose Article 8 rights were deemed to "trump" the public interest in deporting them. A senior UK Border Agency (UKBA) official confirmed that officials generally decided not to refuse applications where the asylum seeker had a case under Article 8, regardless of how weak the other aspects of their claim might be.

"The difficulty is that asylum seekers end up being here so long it becomes unlawful to remove them, because they have children and cannot be deported because of the right to family life," the source said. "If the asylum seeker has been here a few years and has children, we won't seek to remove, because we know that if we go to court we will lose, and if we tried to appeal we would just spend a lot of money to no purpose. Each case was examined. Those without families were removed by us." Ministers denied that granting 161,000 people permission to stay in Britain had been an amnesty. But the select committee report concluded: "In practice an amnesty has taken place, at considerable cost to the taxpayer." (Source: Sunday Telegraph, Jun/11)

Foreign companies, private health care providers, property businesses, even a luxury travel agent, are being paid hundreds of millions a year in a bid to contain thousands of illegal migrants. They are all cashing in on decisions made by the UK Border Agency. Three French companies earned £106million between them last year. An analysis of the agency’s payments to suppliers over the past 12 months shows almost 500 were each paid more than £25,000, totalling £941million.

The biggest beneficiary was G4S, formerly known as Group 4, which received £96.9million for running detention centres and providing other security services. Its competitor, Serco, which runs the colossal Yarl’s Wood immigration “removal centre” near Heathrow, was paid £44.3million. While these two are well known, the Sunday Express has discovered that £44.7million was paid to VF Worldwide Holdings Ltd, a Mauritius company that processes applications for visas.

It won a five-year contract in countries such as South Korea, China and Bangladesh in 2007. Some £67.7million was paid to the French multinational Sodexo, which profits from providing controversial childcare vouchers to thousands of asylum seekers. Another France-based company, Carlson Wagonlit, a travel agent, was paid £28.7million to book flights home for deported asylum seekers.

The company won a contract last year after it emerged civil servants were even hiring private jets for deportations. The agency also paid £18.7million to the International Organisation for Migration, a body that gives cash to asylum seekers as an “incentive” to go home. Another £9.3million was transferred to French-owned Atos Origin, a medical and IT specialist. The files also show £443,000 was paid to Paris Appartments, a company that provides luxury flats for agency staff in the French capital.

There is also a long list of property companies receiving millions of pounds from housing refugees. It includes Clearsprings Management Ltd, which was paid £22.8million, United Property Management, which pocketed £18.6million, Priority Properties Northwest with £16million, and the YMCA in Glasgow, which was paid £6.2million. Document storage company Iron Mountain was also paid £6.2million in the year, while £25.3million was spent on the Treasury’s solicitors department for legal fees.

The Government accounts are only the tip of the iceberg. Tens of millions were also transferred to councils, which then contract out services to more private companies. It emerged some 74,500 asylum seekers have had their cases concluded simply because the applicants cannot be found. Although 430,500 of the backlog of 450,000 cases have been concluded, only 38,000 would-be migrants have been kicked out of the UK, with 161,000 being granted leave to stay. (Source: Sunday Express, Jun/11)