Crusade against the undocumented

Every day, across the UK, aggressive raids are being carried out at workplaces to root out those without papers.
Britain’s ethnic restaurant sector is under attack from government officials who, in their single-minded drive to meet ever higher targets for deportation, have no interest in the impact of their policies on small family businesses or the [...]

Tear down the walls

Phillipe Legrain writes
Europe’s war against immigration is immoral and unwinnable. It’s time for a radical rethink. Europe prides itself on being a continent of human rights, freedom and international solidarity. Yet it is fighting an increasingly dirty war against immigration, with casualties mounting every day. The biggest victims are the poor and the vulnerable, who [...]

Undocumented: a life of poverty, exploitation and danger

An undercover investigation by the BBC looks at the hidden world of undocumented Punjabi migrants in London. The hidden-camera investigation (with sensationalist headlines “Migrant criminal network exposed” and “Life as an illegal immigrant”) reports that these mostly young, Punjabi men are subsisting through poorly paid, dangerous and demeaning work, and are forced to rely on [...]

discrimination and integration

Two interesting articles:
The Kitchen Classes
Minority-run caterers are being unfairly targeted in a severe crackdown on undocumented workers. The crackdown and its discriminatory naming and shaming of ethnic minority businesses will only increase workers’ illegality and exploitation. The honest and real solution is to give them the status and respect that they deserve. By Hsiao-Hung Pai, [...]

Ukraine: border guards of Fortress Europe

The detention building is claustrophobic – four triple bunk beds are squeezed in rooms of 12-16 sq metres.
“Who paid money to be a prisoner?” reads the graffiti on the wall of an illegal migrant detention camp in Ukraine where hundreds of Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Somalians and Vietnamese are being held. In this former army barracks close [...]

Global outcry against EU immigration directive

The European Parliament has approved stringent new laws for dealing with clandestine immigrants – a move that has come under forceful criticism from the United Nations, human rights advocates and developing countries.
The “return directive” would mean that in most cases in most cases an irregular migrant will be given two options – to return home [...]

Local immigration enforcement

From the Free Movement blog…
I just came across a surprising Home Office press release. Usually, Home Office immigration press releases are recycled and re-used dribble. The ‘new’ ‘points’-based ’system’ (I’d question the accuracy of all of these words) has been announced again and again and again, for example.
This one might just be a bit different. [...]

Chinese Whispers: The true story behind Britain’s hidden army of labour

A new book exposing the truth behind the lives of a hidden work force here in Britain. The following article is from OpenDemocracy.Net
Chinese migrant workers: lives in shadow
Hsiao-Hung Pai
The unregulated work of Chinese immigrants on the margins of a rich western society puts them in a trap with many locked doors, finds Hsiao-Hung Pai.
When you [...]

“A new regime”: “shameful and unjust”

5 May 08
The BBC assisted the government in demonstrating the “new regime” of UK immigration policy-in-action with a dramatic televised raid on a factory, while, at Westminster Cathedral, a Mass in Support of Migrant Workers heard a senior Bishop describe the policy as “shameful and unjust”
Immigration Minister Liam Byrne described a “new regime, part of [...]

Rights and regularisation

On 9th April 2008, The Independent covers the remarkable support from all the London Mayoral candidates for the campaign to allow irregular migrant workers without status the right to live and work legally in the UK. In London, the campaign is led by London Citizens, the capital’s largest community organisation, with the backing of church, [...]