[guide.chat] news only wealthy immigrants allowed
- From: vanessa <qwerty1234567a@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "GUIDE CHAT" <guide.chat@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 11:34:37 -0000
New immigration policy favours the wealthy, say critics
Immigration minister to signal more selective policy under which only the right
kind of migrants are allowed to enter Britain
The Guardian, Thursday 2 February 2012
Damian Green: 'We need to know not just that the right numbers of people are
coming here but that the right people are coming here.' Photograph: Peter
Macdiarmid/Getty
Critics have accused the government of paving the way for a selective
immigration policy whereby only the wealthy will be able to marry who they want
from abroad, and only migrants earning more than £31,000 a year will be able to
settle in Britain.
The immigration minister, Damian Green, will confirm on Thursday that ministers
want to move to a more highly selective policy under which only the right kind
of migrants are allowed to enter Britain.
"We need to know not just that the right numbers of people are coming here but
that the right people are coming here. People who will benefit Britain, not
just those who benefit by Britain," Green will argue in a speech to the Policy
Exchange thinktank.
Green also wants to move the immigration debate on from the single issue of
numbers that has dominated for the past decade and instead focus on the benefit
to Britain of allowing only the "brightest and the best" into the UK.
He says the pressure to reduce net migration numbers to "tens of thousands"
will continue as it has since the general election.
His desire to "raise the tone of the debate" follows the latest figures showing
net migration to Britain reaching a record 252,000 in 2010. Green insists there
are "the first small signs" that numbers have been falling since then.
"What we need is a national consensus on how we can make immigration work for
Britain. We are evidently a long way from such a consensus but I want to start
to build it ? the legitimate question in today's world is how we can benefit
from immigration," he will say.
Green will promise that by May ? the second anniversary of the coalition ? the
government will have announced or implemented changes to all the main routes of
immigration and broken the link between migration and staying permanently in
Britain.
He will confirm that major changes in family visas are about to be announced
which will mean that husbands, wives or fiancés who cannot speak English and
are likely to be dependent on benefits will be barred: "Importing economic
dependency on the state is unacceptable," the immigration minister will say.
"Bringing people to this country who can play no role in the life of this
country is equally unacceptable."
Critics say a proposal to ban any British resident from bringing an
overseas-born spouse into the country unless they have a minimum household
income of £25,700 a year will cover half the UK's working population.
Green will also confirm that he is considering setting a minimum income
threshold of between £31,000 and £49,000 a year, below which migrants who
legally come to work in Britain will lose the right to apply to stay
permanently after five years.
"We will end the assumption that settlement is an option for all those who come
to work. Instead, we will accord it to the brightest and the best," Green will
say, adding that pay levels will be used to define who fits into that category.
The minister will hint that he intends to replace the "post-study work route"
for graduates with a new more limited "graduate entrepreneur" specialist
category.
He will also acknowledge recent recurrent visa problems for visiting artists,
entertainers and business people that have discouraged even world-class
performers from coming to Britain: "I am aware that this has been a sore point
for some time, and we are taking action. The system does work well for most
people," he insists.
Matt Cavanagh, associate director of the Institute for Public Policy Research,
said it made sense to give some priority to wealthy migrants and to ask whether
someone on benefits should be able to bring in a spouse.
He said: "But the government is going much further: essentially their approach
is, if you're a wealthy migrant, you can come, you can stay as long as you
like; if you're a wealthy resident, you can marry whoever you like; but for
everyone else, it is going to get much more difficult.
"And we're not talking about people who are destitute or living on benefits, we
are talking about people who are working and getting an average wage. Migrants
will still be invited to come and work at these wages [between £20,000 and
£30,000] to fill jobs where we lack the skills or nobody else wants to do the
work, but after five years they will be asked to leave, regardless of the
contribution they have made or could make in the future.
"Likewise, not just people living on benefits but almost half the British
population, could lose the right to marry and live with someone from abroad."
Habib Rahman of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, said it was
very worried about Green's plans on family reunion visas.
"The rights of British people to live with their loved ones here, and the
splitting of families in the coalition government's reckless pursuit of lower
net immigration figures are the human cost of this insane numbers game, the
Home Office is playing," he said.
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