One-sided approach to managed migration is responsible for current crisis of immigration control policies

JCWI has expressed its regret over the circumstances leading to the resignation of Beverley Hughes, the former immigration minister. Our concern relates not to an assessment of her as a particularly good or constructive minister, but to the fact that she was brought down for bad reasons. 

Ms Hughes’ resignation was media-driven, based on information provided by self-styled whistle-blowers in the UK consulates in Bucharest and Sofia and IND Sheffield. But the fact remains that, despite the absurd stories of one legged roofers and fingerless electricians, not a scrap of evidence has been revealed in any of the tabloid scare stories or Sunday broadsheet feature spreads which points to the existence of unmanageable levels of migration from Bulgaria and Romania to the UK. On the contrary, the modest levels of increase in the exercise of European Union rights by citizens of the two accession states represents little more than what would be expected from countries which in three years will be full members of the European Union.

Important questions
In the course of its campaign against Home Office ministers, the UK media has failed to ask any of the really important questions about why some officials took issue with the policies they are required to implement. At a time when the business of moving between the accession states and the EU was supposed to be becoming simpler, why were consular officials demanding unnecessary documentation from applicants relying on rights under the European Communities Association Agreements (ECAA)?  To what extent were these embassy officials prepared to acknowledge the obligation placed upon them under EU law to facilitate the exercise of the right of establishment for self-employed service providers? 
In September 2001 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in the joined cases of Barkoci and Malik (Case C-257/99), that requirements on the part of immigration regulations in respect of the admission of nationals claiming ECAA establishment rights could not have the “purpose nor the effect of making it impossible or excessively difficult for [ECAA] nationals to exercise the rights granted to them by […] the Association Agreement.” In other words, the proper implementation of policy needed to reflect the fact that the ECAA countries were in a process of transition, at the end of which they would be fully assimilated into the untrammelled right to free movement for the purpose of establishment as self employed services providers.

Business plan hysteria
Much has been made in the UK media in recent days of the allegation that some applicants were not fully conversant with the content of the ‘business plans’ which entry clearance officials were demanding they produce to support applications under the ECAA rules. A practice was established by officials in the Consulates which made detailed plans the key to successful applications. The consequent “business plan inflation” led directly to patent absurdities reported in some newspapers which was exemplified by the account of the Bulgarian welder who had felt obliged to put together a 70 page document exhibiting his intentions (Guardian, 1 April 2004). The plain fact is that the law, properly implemented, would entitle this applicant to admission to the UK on production of no more than his qualifications and evidence of possession of the tools of his trade.

Having gone down the route of insisting on a high volume of supporting evidence consular staff created the opportunities for the much criticised visa advice agencies to flourish. Ironically these outfits multiply in an environment of rigidly restrictive controls, in being geared to meeting the extravagant demands of officials for evermore ‘evidence’, the only loser being the would-be migrant.

Gatekeepers or facilitators?
By and large, Home Office officials and consular based staff alike have been told to keep people out of the UK for the past four decades. A culture of suspicion over all would-be migrants pervades throughout the Home Office in Croydon and British embassies abroad, particularly in the asylum directorate.  The notable exception to this rule of thumb has been Work Permits UK in Sheffield, a division of the Home Office which has been proactively enabling UK businesses to bring in much needed staff that the British labour market cannot provide.

To comply with European Union law in relation to ECAA applications, the responsibility for decision-making was in Sheffield and not consular staff. In the current climate, officials who think the government has gone soft on immigration policy have become so-called whistle-blowing allowing them to disrupt policies without reference to real facts and law.

The real issues
Twice as many asylum seekers in detention, the imposition of biometric ID cards, decisions being fast-tracked without due consideration and the denial of an in-country right of appeal are now the hallmarks of the UK’s refugee protection regime. With electronic tagging, the undermining of due process of law through limiting judicial scrutiny in immigration cases and the threat of children being taken in to care amongst the key features of the government’s latest piece of legislation, the protection regime is increasingly becoming devoid of human rights. 

Human rights organisations including as Amnesty International as well as cross-party Parliamentary committees have roundly condemned the quality of the Home Office’s decision-making process which results in the incorrect return of unquantified numbers of asylum seekers to torture or persecution. In addition, tens of thousands of asylum seekers are now left destitute annually, irrespective of the merits of their asylum claim, to act as a deterrent effect to people coming to the UK for protection. These are the real issues that should be grabbing the headlines and throwing question marks over the government’s immigration policy. No doubt, the imposition of targets imposed by the government to halve asylum numbers have been the driving factors behind such restrictive policies.

Successive governments have failed to decide asylum and immigration applications fairly and humanely. This has led to the expansion of an expensive appeals system which is the only recourse applicants have to obtain justice. An independent decision-making body is needed now more than ever to ensure impartial decision-making free from the political motives of government. 

Weaknesses in managed migration
On the face of it, the experience of the Bulgarian and Romanian self-employed migrants during these past weeks seems likely to increase the pessimism of anyone advocating a reformed system of managed immigration policies in tune with the needs of the modern world. But this would be justified only if Home Office ministers were truly seen as the sincere and well-intentioned promoters of fair and reasonable policies. It is difficult to accept that this is the case. 

The version of managed migration proclaimed by the Home Office at the present time is gravely deficient across a whole range of issues, not least the aspect which has proven so damaging to Ms Hughes’ ministerial career on this occasion, namely the extravagancy of its bureaucratic component.

Managed migration as conceived of by this government resembles a Byzantine labyrinth of overly complex procedures which require essentially similar categories to be treated differently dependent on such variables as skill levels, sectors of employment, nationality, age and, indirectly, the gender of the migrant worker. On the basis of these elements the migrant will either have rights which can be asserted within immigration control procedures or none and as a consequence be dependent on the exercise of benevolent discretion by the authorities. 

Vulnerable migrants
The point being made here is that managed migration has been allowed to develop such complex and variable features that only those with the resources of an immigration control bureaucracy, or a strategic sense of legal structure, are able to make any predictions about what is or is not going on at any one time. Migrants are often in the least-best place to know what is expected of them within the system, and because of this they have been made vulnerable to the predation of others who seek their ruthless exploitation. Dissidents within the system will always find opportunities to vent their grievances; and if they are disposed to anti-immigrant viewpoints, will find a ready audience amongst the right wing press. Officials themselves are also exposed within the system, either to actions through the courts on the legality of their decisions, or by others critical of the ways in which they have decided to exercise their discretion on particular aspects of policy.

In short, the type of managed migration which revolves around the populist spin of politicians and unfettered authority of their officials is likely to prove unstable in the medium term.  Whilst politics and administration are essential to well managed policies, they are not the rocks on which stable and enduring policies might be built.

Migrant rights
The stuffing has been kicked out of the government’s core strategies for immigration control during these past weeks and it is difficult to see how it can get things back on track again quickly. If the voice of an experienced, voluntary organisation working in the field of immigration policy for 37 years is to be listened to, we would urge the government to look for more secure foundations for managed migration in a direction against which it has hitherto set its face – namely the rights of migrants themselves. 

Instil a culture of trust and increase the quality of decisions by officials in the system, simplify the procedures by which people move from country to country, and above all acknowledge the fact that immigration will be all the more stable and predictable when it is governed by clearly defined rights which are well-known to the immigrant, administrator and media pundit alike, and it is odds-on that we will put in place a better managed and more rational system which functions for the benefit of the widest possible range of interests.

6th April 2004

Source for this Page: JCWI

Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI)
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