INDIAN ILLEGALS RISK LIFE AND LIMB FOR ... - Immigration Law

While India is leaping to the forefront as the global economic power-

house,? many Indians continue to be lured to the United Kingdom. They

enter the country using legal or illegal means. SHAMLAL PURI in London reports

on the growing scram for the UK and the growth of illegal immigration.

Has the British Government been defeated by unchecked entry of illegals?

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?????????????????????????INDIAN ILLEGALS RISK LIFE AND LIMB FOR THE GOOD LIFE IN BRITAIN

???????????????????????????????????????????????????????By SHAMLAL PURI in London

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WHEN Gyan Singh (not his real name) decided to make his way to London from his village in the Punjab, he had made up his mind to turn his back on India. As he was packing his bags in his room he had turned a deaf ear to a loud radio broadcast that was extolling the riches of his country and the economic progress his motherland had made and the fact it was going to gain world attention by hosting the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

???? Gyan Singh was not even listening to the broadcast. He did not have time to listen to how wealthy Indians were becoming in India. To him, only a chosen few with influence and high level contacts could become rich in India and bank millions of dollars of black money in foreign bank accounts. He was not in that league.? He had made up his mind to leave India. His future really lay in Queen Elizabeth?s England.

???? This young Punjabi school drop out, the son of a middle class farmer, is among the hundreds of thousands who make the?perilous journey to the United Kingdom every year. And he pays a tidy sum to an unscrupulous agent for the privilege of undertaking a journey that could either take him to his destination in the UK earning him the riches he was chasing or he could return to the Punjab in a body bag to the grief of wailing relatives.? Gyan Singh was ready to take the risk.

????? It was people like Mr Singh who form the growing number of illegal immigrants arriving in the UK every month.? A UK-based criminal network has used fake passports, identity documents and human carriers to bring illegals, most from the Punjab, into the United Kingdom.

???? These immigrants are settled in safe houses in Southall, west London, home to a large concentration of Punjabi immigrants from India. Nearly all of the illegal migrants ? called ?faujis? (soldiers in Punjabi) but referred to as such in criminal parlance ? are said to be from the Punjab.

???? Agents, mostly Indians, are openly dealing with fake documents which they say are easy to obtain and?sold at a premium to customers as far afield as Sheffield, Bradford and Coventry. One agent who did not want to be identified said he could get people into the country on lorries, known as donkeys or mules, organised by what he called his man in Europe, and told how he could provide a fake ?original? passport that had been ?checked? to beat security at a UK airport.

???? Indian employers who said they had no problem obtaining papers for the illegal workers, some of whom were willing to shell out huge sums of money for fake passports. There were Indian landlords renting out space to the illegals. And, there was no shortage of work, though the workers are grossly underpaid.

???? There was no shortage of job offers, including at a Southall eatery where a ?fauji? earlier this year told of being employed for 12-hour days, six days a week at ?150 ? about ?2 an hour. The legal hourly wage in the UK is ?5.93 an hour from October 2010, up from ?5.73. For his labour, this man should have been paid a weekly salary of ?412.56. Exploitation goes hand in glove with illegal immigration. Often illegals are grossly underpaid because the employers know that the employee who gets cash in hand has no recourse to legal help.

???? One illegal worker seeking work was told not to worry about the fact that he had no papers. The contractor, a Mr Singh told him that he would handle that issue but warned the worker not to mention this to anyone otherwise he (the worker)?could end up in prison.?

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???? Another worker went to an area well known to Southall ?faujis?, where they wait at the roadside to be picked up for casual labour in the same way as illegal Mexican labourers do in the US. A man approached and an on-the-spot job ?interview? was conducted. He was asked if he wanted to work and on replying affirmatively, the interviewer asked no further questions.

???? The worker, who spent his life working in his family shop in the Punjab before coming to the UK, was taken to a building site and, without being asked whether he had any experience, was put to work on a roof parapet with no training, safety advice or kit. He was paid ?35 for 12 hours? labour.

???? It is clear that the scale of illegal activity that goes on in just one square mile is astounding. Here, hundreds of illegal immigrants, scores of multiple-occupancy houses, and people dealing in fake identities, employment and fraud are at work as part of a criminal network that is out of sight of those visiting the town to enjoy Indian cultural heritage and foods.

???? Everyone in Southall is tight-lipped about the use of illegals ? from employers to employees and their circle of friends. They protect each other from prying eyes and work in a network where silence is the name of the game.

???? They work on building sites as labourers or in Indian-owned shops and restaurants where the clientele is largely Indian and no one asks any questions.

?????It is an open secret that illegal immigrants are trafficked by smugglers from India via Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey and then on to Calais (France) from where they reach the United Kingdom and cities like London and Leicester. Another route for the illegal immigration is through Russia, the Ukraine, Slovakia and then into Austria, the gateway to western Europe.

???? The British government is strictly enforcing laws against illegal migration, particularly from Asia but is not entirely succeeding in its endeavors. Steps are underway to introduce local immigration teams across the UK by 2012 to prevent businesses employing illegal workers. But how far this move will succeed remains to be seen.

???? Businesses are also being named and shamed on the UK Border Agency website, and those who continue to break the rules face huge fines, up to ?10,000. Enforcement officers have raided hundreds of Asian restaurants, super markets and other businesses detecting hundreds of illegal workers from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and south-east Asian countries.

???? This exercise comes in the wake of the introduction stricter immigration rules and protests by various British groups about the negative impact of illegal immigration on the local population.

???? In January, 2004, India and Britain signed an agreement to formalize sharing of intelligence to combat terrorism, and to allow Britain to send illegal immigrants back to India more easily. ?The re-documentation and the ability to deal with this issue is indicative of the tremendous strides we have taken together,? the then Labour home secretary David Blunkett had said after the signing of the agreement.

???? Is Britain losing its war against illegal immigration? There is a school of thought that believes the UK is a soft touch for illegal immigration. And there is a school of thought, in the Government circles that claims Britain is tightening up on immigration.

???? The issue of illegal immigration still remains explosive although the Government of David Cameron, the Conservative Party leader and Nick Clegg, his Liberal democrat coalition partner, are juggling with ideas and planning to introduce measures to curtail the entry of immigrants.

???? In the past there have been calls, even by members of the ruling Conservatives, to put a cap on migrants but this is easily said than done. The UK needs migrants who bring in skills not available in the country. The Government has to cut a fine path between allowing legal immigrants and blocking the illegals.

???? Also in the frame are demands from politicians for a huge reduction in the number of non-European Union workers who settle permanently in the UK.

???? The pressure group Migration Watch believes that? Britain?s open door immigration policy is costing British jobs and is proving to be unpopular with the electorate.

???? Critics say the continued presence of immigrants in Britain is placing an intolerable burden on schools, transport, the health service and the environment.

???? Alarmists are saying that if immigration goes unchecked, Britain will have to build seven cities the size of Birmingham by 2031. And citing European Commission?s findings, they go even further to suggest that Britain?s population will shoot up from 60.9 million to 77 million within 50 years, making it Europe?s most populous nation.

???? But pacifists among the immigration lobby say that realistically, Britain is losing a lot of its citizens who are settling abroad. In China alone, an economic powerhouse more than 800,000 British citizens are settled there. There is a new breed of British migrants to the United Arab Emirates and other parts of the Middle East. The rich and mega rich are leaving the UK to settle in places such as Dubai where they buy villas and enjoy a relaxed lifestyle that is better than the UK.

???? In just one year ? 2006 ? Government figures showed that 591,000 people arrived in the UK against 400,000 who had left the country to settle elsewhere. So in balance, net immigration stood only at 191,000 new arrivals!

???? Politicians are demanding to balance the number of those coming to settle in Britain with those emigrating. They want the 100,000 skilled foreign workers entering Britain on four-year work permits to leave as soon as their permits expire. Under the present system they stay on and are allowed to settle permanently.

???? The central aim of the immigration policy, say those championing it, is to put a cap on those planning to settle in the UK and to treat those on work permits to have the status of? ?guest workers? only.? That means they should return to their own countries upon completion of their four year tenure in the UK. This is done in the Middle East with some degree of success.

???? Sources in the anti-immigration lobby say unless this cap is imposed, there is a serious long-term danger of immigration going out of control. They fear Asian and African immigrants will swamp Britain if an open-door policy is allowed.

???? The Conservatives openly say that they want to pull the plug on non-EU immigrants settling in the UK.? The growing fear here is that immigrants are taking the jobs that would normally be done by Britons. There are statistics to prove that 1.4 million workers born abroad had taken jobs in Britain since 1997 ? up to 81 percent of 1.7 million new jobs.

???? There is a school of thought among existing migrants that there should be curbs on future immigrants coming to Britain but this may be a case of existing immigrants saying to new comers? ?I?m alright Jack. I don?t care about you.?

???? But in spite of the current crisis concerning legal immigration it goes without saying illegals such as Gyan Singh and faujis like him still have no place or legality in the UK. They are not part of the legal immigration system of the UK. They will have to remain at the mercy of those involved in illegal human traffic, entering the country in the back of a lorry risking their life and limb. They are the ones exploited by the unscrupulous immigration agents. ?

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Source: http://www.mofabd.org/indian-illegals-risk-life-and-limb-for-the-good-life-in-britain.htm

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