Migrants fuel UK baby boom: One in four now born to foreign mums

A migrant baby boom is driving Britain's population to grow faster than any other country in the EU.

One in four of the 813,000 babies born here last year was to a mother from outside the UK and helped push the birth rate to a 40-year high.

Britain's population explosion was also fuelled by the arrival of 517,800 migrants, mostly from China, India, Germany, the US, Pakistan, Poland and Australia.

After allowing for deaths and people leaving the country, Britain's net population rocketed by 419,900 to 63.7 million. The leap is equivalent to 1,150 people arriving here every day.

The ONS figures showed that of all UK newborns, 25.9 per cent had a mother born outside the country, most commonly from Poland, then India and Pakistan.

A decade earlier the figure was one in six.

While 517,800 migrants came to Britain last year only 352,100 left, leaving a net gain of 165,600.
Daily Express, 9.8.13t

Border staff 'not fingerprinting' illegal immigrants in France

UK border staff in France are failing to take the fingerprints of thousands of illegal immigrants caught trying to enter Britain, inspectors say.

The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration said records should be kept in case the same people later claimed asylum in the UK.

John Vine also said people-smugglers were not being fined heavily enough.
BBC, 8.8.13

Only one in 10 Britons has close friend of different race

Just one in 10 Britons has a best friend from a different ethnic background, according to research which reveals that racial segregation is still a major issue in the UK.

The polling for The Challenge Network, which aims to encourage integration through youth and community groups, found that Britons are in fact 8 per cent more likely to have no best friend at all than one of a different ethnicity.

The figures about friendship across races were the same in adulthood and childhood. Just 10 per cent of British adults had a best friend from a different ethnic background when they were at school, the same proportion as in adulthood.
The Independent, 7.8.13

Judge: Obama's DREAM Act Amnesty Is Illegal, but ICE Agents Can't Sue

A federal judge in Dallas has dismissed a civil suit by ICE agents challenging the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty (Obama's administrative version of the DREAM Act). The agents claimed that Obama's illegal amnesty forced them to violate federal law, contrary to their oath to bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution. The judge actually agreed that DACA is illegal.

But he dismissed the case on grounds that the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 establishes an administrative process for resolving employment disputes, and that the court didn't have jurisdiction.

The agents' attorney, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, said "the fact remains that the Obama administration is ordering ICE agents to break the law, as recognized by a federal court. It is imperative that this attack on the rule of law be stopped, one way or another."
National Review Online, 1.8.13

The town where landlords rent out 6,350 beds in sheds to migrants

As many as 6,350 "beds in sheds", rented out by rogue landlords to illegal immigrants, are being rooted out in just one town.

Slough was one of the nine worst affected councils handed nearly £2 million by the Government to tackle the issue. It became the first to use the specialist spy plane.

In March, the aircraft made a two-hour night flight over the borough picking up heat signals from outbuildings to see if they are being used as "beds in sheds".

All the data has been analysed and a list of 6,350 suspicious dwellings drawn up that have to be investigated.
Daily Express, 31.7.13

Racism? It is not racist to ask people who are here illegally to leave Britain

By Mark Harper

All mobile billboards aimed at illegal immigrants do is inform people who have no right to be here that the Government will help them return home voluntarily.

But the reaction they have generated from the Left and the pro-immigration industry has been astonishing. They have denounced that simple message as 'racist'.

Let me clear this up once and for all – it is not racist to ask people who are here illegally to leave Britain. It is merely telling them to comply with the law.
Daily Mail, 30.7.13

Flimsy facts undermine our migration debate

When the Coalition came to office in 2010, net migration was 252,000 – the highest ever. In 2011, it dropped to around 200,000. And in the 12 months to September 2012 it had fallen again, to 153,000.

The figure is actually calculated by a giant extrapolation, using the International Passenger Survey, which involves face-to-face interviews with randomly selected passengers at airports and ports.

It's a large survey, with around 700,000 interviews a year. But the vast majority of those are tourists, holidaymakers, business travellers or other short-term visitors.

In 2011, the total number of interviews with immigrants was just 2,620 and with emigrants – British people going to live overseas – was 1,824. From this base, the net migration figure is constructed.

But because that sample is still so tiny, the margin of error is absolutely huge, plus or minus 35,000 in each direction with a small chance it is even more.

The Commons public administration select committee called it "unfit for purpose" and wondered whether ministers even want it to be right.

"Some would say that successive governments have hardly been trying to fix it – they didn't want people to know the truth," says Bernard Jenkin, the committee's Tory chairman.
Sunday Telegraph, 28.7.13

UK jobs being advertised across the EU at taxpayers' expense, it emerges

More than 800,000 UK jobs are being offered to workers across the European Union, it has been disclosed.

Under an EU scheme partly funded by British taxpayers, all positions advertised in UK job centres also have to be offered to workers in European member states.

UK firms are given as much as £1,000 as a bonus for taking on the foreign workers.

The EU scheme offers foreigners hundreds of pounds of funding to pay for interviews in the UK, relocation costs and even English lessons.

Of the 1,450,490 jobs being advertised on the website, 808,659 were posts in the UK – more that the total number of positions in all the other member states put together.

Germany is only advertising 267,517 jobs – a third of the UK's total. Poland is advertising just 120 jobs on the site.

A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said that under the European Treaty, all EU countries are "obliged to share their job vacancies".
Daily Telegraph, 27.7.13

Revealed: How 500,000 immigrants have been given social housing in last decade as number of families on waiting list hits record high

Nearly half a million immigrants have been given taxpayer-funded homes over the past decade.

The revelation comes as the number of families on the waiting list for social housing hits a record 1.8 million. Most are British born.

Of the four million migrants who arrived between 2001 and 2011, 469,843 were allocated council or housing association properties.

Around 1.2 million foreigners now live in social housing – one in eight of the total.
Daily Mail, 27.7.13

Park Lane gypsies back with a vengeance -- just THREE DAYS after being turfed out by police

Just three days ago police and immigration officials turfed out scores of Romanian travellers who had made a ramshackle camp in one of Britain's plushest districts.

Now, dozens of the Romanian gypsies have returned to Park Lane, turning the prestigious area back into a dishevelled mess.

Westminster spends about £500,000 a year on daily clean-up operations, paying to send destitute travellers home and issuing anti-social behaviour orders.
Daily Express, 23.7.13

Fury at £32m bill to care for failed asylum seekers

Delays in getting rid of failed asylum seekers are costing the hard-pressed British taxpayers millions of pounds a year.

Figures show £32.1 million has been spent over the past three and a half years supporting more than 20,000 migrants after they have been refused permission to stay in Britain.

Worsening log-jams at the Home Office and ballooning numbers of human rights appeals mean each one waits an average of 10 months to return home.

The massive bill to stop them falling destitute before they leave does not include the cost of housing them.
Daily Express, 22.7.13

How 70 Olympic athletes and coaches are still in Britain after claiming asylum last year

Seventy Olympic athletes and coaches who claimed political asylum after the Games last year are still in Britain.

Half have already been granted refugee status by the Home Office and will be allowed to settle.

The rest are still in the country fighting for the right to remain.

Officials have refused to give a full breakdown of the asylum seekers' nationalities because, they claimed, it risked identifying them, but it is thought the vast majority are African.
Daily Mail, 22.7.13

Food crisis Professor tells families to cut amount they eat 'by a third'

Families need to cut the amount they eat by a third, a government advisor claimed last night, as he warned current consumption levels were "unsustainable".

Professor Tim Benton warned that food would become "the fundamental issue of the next half century" and that wars in the future would be fought over water and access to land for crops as countries battle it out to feed their growing populations.
Daily Telegraph, 22.7.13

100,000 homes may be built on Green Belt land

Up to 100,000 homes are to be built on land from England's protected Green Belt following the Government's planning reforms.

The housing is to be constructed on land that is to be stripped of the protection by councils as they come under pressure to increase the supply of new homes.
Sunday Telegraph, 21.7.13

Robin Page: immigration 'is putting wildlife at risk'

Immigration and overpopulation is putting Britain's wildlife at risk, according to an outspoken conservation campaigner.

Mr [Robin] Page said: "In 2000 the UN claimed that Britain's population was just 59 million and that in 2025 it would still be under 60 million. It is already over 63 million and is expected to rise by another 10 million by 2030 and we are already one of the most densely populated major countries in the world."
Cambridge News, 20.7.13

Foreign gangs exploiting language barrier problems to take advantage of police roadside checks in the UK

Foreign criminals are taking advantage of weaknesses in police roadside checks to operate in Britain, a senior officer admitted last night.

Organised gangs, particularly from Eastern Europe, are trying to exploit difficulties officers face in trying to prove their identity.

In many cases criminals cannot be stopped from entering the country and when deported they are able to return within days.
Daily Mail, 20.7.13

Only one in every 100 reports of illegal immigration results in deportation

Only one in every 100 reports of illegal immigration has resulted in someone being removed from the country, the Home Office has admitted.

Dave Wood, head of the immigration enforcement directorate, defended the response and told MPs allegations rarely provided sufficient information or intelligence on which to act.

The Home Office's Allegations Management System (AMS) was introduced in September 2012 to record all allegations concerning illegal immigration.

Up to June this year, there had been 48,660 allegations logged on the system, of which 2,695 claims led to visits by immigration enforcement officers.

Those investigations resulted in 1,840 arrests being made and 660 removals.
Daily Telegraph, 17.7.13

[USA] Thomas Sowell: Paul Ryan's argument for immigration reform 'utter nonsense'

[Thomas] Sowell also argued for a "rational" immigration policy that would take an immigrant's nationality into account.

"They constantly talk about immigrants in the abstract," he said. "You know, there are no such thing as abstract immigrants. There are immigrants from country a, b, c, d. They are radically different. People coming in from some countries almost never go on welfare. Immigrants coming in from other countries go on welfare to a great extent. If we're going to have a rational immigration policy, then we have to be able to decide what people, what countries, what occupations – things like that.
Daily Caller, 16.7.13

Poll shows 8 out of 10 voters want foreign criminals kicked out

Eight in 10 voters want tougher action on foreign criminals and asylum seekers, an opinion poll showed last night.

It found 87 per cent want any non-UK citizen convicted of a criminal offence to be deported. And 80 per cent want a set time limit for anyone wishing to claim asylum in Britain to make their application.
Daily Express, 16.7.13

Immigration backlog tops 500,000 and will take 37 years to clear, warn MPs

The Home Office's immigration backlog has topped 500,000 for the first time and will take until the year 2050 to clear at current rates, MPs have warned.

A report from the all-party Home Affairs Select Committee said the total had leapt from 322,000 in the third quarter last year to more than 502,000 at the end of 2012, following the disclosure of a previously unreported 190,000 cases.

The total features more than 4,000 foreign criminals the government is trying to deport, 33,500 asylum cases and 61,000 cases which are still awaiting inputting into computer systems.
Daily Telegraph, 13.7.13

First the Romanians NOW the Bulgarians: New research shows new wave of immigrants

A survey found nearly a fifth of Bulgarians aged 15 to 55 are planning to move to another EU state in the next couple of years.

It could mean about 400,000 leaving when immigration controls on their movement in the European Union are lifted on January 1.

Forty-three per cent of those who want to leave Bulgaria would like to go to Germany and more than a third – 34 per cent – want to come here.
Daily Express, 12.7.13

Baby boom Britain! Highest number of births since 1971 fuelled by migrants and older mothers

The number of babies born last year was the highest in more than 40 years, according to official figures.

There were nearly 724,000 newborn children in England and Wales, the greatest number since 1971, at the tail end of the 1960s baby boom.

A key reason for the rising numbers of babies is the large-scale immigration of the past decade, which has brought in mainly young men and women ready to have families.

The share of babies born to immigrant mothers went up again, to 25.9 per cent, well over a quarter of all births.
Daily Mail, 11.7.13

Desperate migration of Europe's unemployed, as the jobless masses head north to Britain and Germany in search of work

Millions of Europe's unemployed youth are moving to more wealthy countries in the European Union as they desperately try to find work.

Almost a quarter of the EU's under 25s - some 5.6 million - are now unemployed.

Greeks, Bulgarians and Romanians are most likely to say they would like to move, according to the report.

And it showed Britain was the top choice for foreign workers from the EU looking for employment last year, with 37 per cent migrating for these shores as they searched for work. Germany was next with 28 per cent.
Daily Mail, 11.7.13

Immigration undercounted by ½ million

The number of EU immigrants has been undercounted by half a million over a ten year period – a difference the size of Manchester. The mistake was discovered by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) when they compared the results of the recent census with the population that they had expected to find on the basis of births, deaths and the official immigration figures.

This discovery means that net foreign immigration between mid 1997 and mid 2010 now totals very nearly 4 million. Allowing for the 1 million British citizens who emigrated in that period, net immigration comes to 3 million. That is its direct effect on the population of the UK although it takes no account of illegal immigration.

Amazingly, the ONS have refused to revise the official immigration numbers for the period despite having regularly done so in the past when much smaller errors were discovered.
Migrationwatch UK, 11.7.13