Pretended and Actual Government Immigration Policy

Conservative Party leadership contender Liz Truss has pledged to expand the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme if she becomes Prime Minister. I have been avoiding commenting on some of the ludicrous and appalling immigration policies we’ve seen aired during the leadership campaign but this one caught my eye as an example of continuity rather than change. I’ve previously wondered what United Kingdom immigration policy even is right now, and this announcement poses that same question afresh. Essentially, government policy has been stated to be to reduce economic migration, particularly low-skilled or low-paid migration, in the expectation that British businesses will adapt by offering higher wages and better conditions in order to recruit resident rather than foreign workers.

Read more, Colin Yeo, Freemovement, https://rb.gy/5cbx5m

Is It Time For a Whistleblower Visa?

Raising misconduct by or within your employer is a brave and difficult step. You put your financial security, your career and your well-being at risk for the greater good. Often the rewards are nil, if not negative. For migrants there is the additional burden of legal precarity, which is often overlooked. Their entitlement to be in the UK rests on continuing sponsorship by their employer or meeting a financial threshold. In additional to financial ruin and being shunned by their sector, doing the right thing may mean that they and their family must leave the country. Immigration protections for whistleblowers are near non-existent. The options available are cumbersome and can dissuade people from acting. And it affects a whole raft of people. This post will explore these issues and propose possible solutions for an effective safety net. Though it covers several areas of criminality and wrongdoing, the statistics on fraud are perhaps the most revealing. Drawing on National Audit Office data, the APPG’s 2022 report highlighted that between 43% and 47% of serious economic crimes were exposed by whistleblowers. This was compared to 19% of fraud uncovered by professional auditors. “To put that into perspective, whistleblowers alone uncover fraud to the value of around half of the NHS budget (£136bn) every year”.

Read more, Joseph Sinclair, Freemovement, https://rb.gy/hjimnp

Asylum Seekers Waiting More Than Six Months Must be Allowed To Work

The government must allow the 70,000 asylum seekers waiting more than six months for a decision to work to stop them from being exploited and drawn into modern slavery, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said. A report by the agency and British Red Cross found that people were being forced into prolonged periods of “financial hardship” because they are given just £5 a day to live on and are legally banned from paid employment. It said that long waits for decisions on asylum and modern slavery applications left people “trapped in financial hardship, being dependent on others such as the Home Office for accommodation and support” and can lead them to “take up offers of work in unsafe and exploitative conditions”.

It contained the accounts of a female trafficking victim who had “gone back into prostitution” after waiting more than a year for a government decision, Eritrean asylum seekers in domestic servitude and a group of young Vietnamese men being targeted by people “trying to re-exploit them in terms of nail bars or cannabis cultivation”.

Read more, Lizzie Dearden, Indpendent, https://rb.gy/skug7d

Channel Smugglers Drop Prices and Cram More People on to Boats

People-smugglers have dropped their prices and are cramming more people than ever before into already overloaded, flimsy boats, the Guardian has learned. Last week 696 asylum seekers crossed the Channel from France to the UK in one day, the Ministry of Defence said. The increased numbers arriving in more overcrowded boats with cheaper crossing prices demonstrate that plans to forcibly remove some asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on small boats are not acting as a deterrent, campaigners say. Last November, French police quoted a price of about £5,000 charged by smugglers for an individual to cross the Channel, according to reports in the Mirror. Now asylum seekers and non-governmental organisations are saying that prices have dropped to between £500 and £1,000 for a place in a boat.

Read more: Diane Taylor, Independent, https://rb.gy/pstxh7

Smartwatches Could Soon be Used to Monitor Migrants

In the UK, facial recognition smartwatches could be used to monitor migrants who have been convicted of a crime, according to a scoop obtained by the Guardian. Under new plans from the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, seen by the news outlet, foreign offenders would reportedly have to scan their faces up to five times a day using devices equipped with the technology. According to contract details on the UK government's website, the Ministry of Justice awarded a £6 million contract to British technology company Buddi Limited in May to supply electronic monitoring non-fitted devices "to support implementation of the Home Office Satellite Tracking Service for specific cohorts. This service, introduced in 2018, uses satellite technology to monitor foreign offenders awaiting deportation. A non-fitted device solution will provide a more proportionate way of monitoring specific cohorts over extended periods of time than fitted tags," the contract description reads. "These devices will utilise periodic biometric verification as an alternative to being fitted to an individual."

The Guardian reports the new scheme is set to be rolled out this autumn, and that it will entail "daily monitoring of individuals subject to immigration control," according to viewed Home Office documents. Migrants who are told to wear a smartwatch (or an ankle tag) must do so at all times — those having to wear the devices will have been previously convicted of a criminal offense.

Read more, Meera Navlakha, Marshable, https://rb.gy/lgqkf8