British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promises to reduce immigration, one of the major issues, if his Conservative Party wins next month’s election.
Sunak hopes the issue will allow him to distinguish himself from the opposition Labour Party, which is currently ahead of him by more than 20 points in opinion polls.
Immigration has long been a major political issue in Britain, with voters expressing concern that the large influx of migrants is putting undue pressure on housing, education and the state-run National Health Service. In 2010, Prime Minister David Cameron promised to bring net migration back to tens of thousands a year. However, the target has never been met.
Ending the free movement of people into the UK from other European countries was a major factor leading to the 2016 vote to leave the European Union. However, net migration, which reached 329,000 in 2015, continues to rise.
According to the latest official figures for May, the provisional total net immigration for 2023 was 685,000, up from a record high of 764,000 in 2022.
Indian nationals were the largest nationality coming to the UK last year. They accounted for around a fifth of total immigration, followed by Nigerian and Chinese nationals.
In January, Sunak introduced new rules to reduce the number of arrivals by 300,000. He banned foreign students from inviting family members and raised the salary threshold for skilled worker visas by 48 per cent to 38,700 pounds ($66,500). The Prime Minister also banned care workers from bringing in dependents.
Election promises
Sunak says if he wins the election, he will cap the number of work and family visas at an annual level agreed by parliament.
At the same time, the opposition Labour Party claims it will also reduce net migration by reducing reliance on foreign workers, addressing domestic skills shortages and cracking down on rogue employers.
The issue of legal migration is separate from the equally politically contentious issue of stopping asylum seekers arriving in the UK without permission across the Channel from Europe in small boats. Sunak’s plan to send those arriving in this way to Rwanda failed to materialise before the election.
More than 29,000 people arrived on small boats last year after a record 45,775 in 2022. More than 10,000 people have already crossed the Channel this year.
The UK spends more than three billion pounds a year processing asylum claims. At the same time, it costs around eight million pounds a day to house migrants waiting for a decision in hotels and other accommodation.
Romania fights migrant trafficking network
Meanwhile, Romanian authorities searched several counties on Tuesday after uncovering a new method of migrant trafficking, according to Euractiv. It involves migrants entering Schengen countries through Romania, despite the fact that migrant trafficking was the main reason Austria blocked Romania’s access to Schengen last year.
Prosecutors from the Directorate for the Investigation of Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) executed a series of 67 search warrants in the districts of Caras-Severin, Timiș, Arad, Bihor, Argeș, Sibiu and Bucharest City in a criminal case involving the formation of an organised crime group, human trafficking and fraudulent crossing of the Romanian state border.
DIICOT operations were coordinated with prosecutors of the Romanian Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA).
The criminal group illegally obtained work permits for 1,181 foreign nationals, mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh (more than 80 per cent), but also from Sri Lanka, India, Nepal and Sudan. These people were often diverted to economically developed European countries without further contact with the recruitment company.
The group also helped foreign nationals to overstay their visas by bribing immigration officials.
