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EU expansion fuels immigration surge
May 27, 2005, 12:20 GMT
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LONDON, England (UPI) -- More than 170,000 people from Eastern Europe applied to work in Britain in the 11 months after EU expansion, the latest figures show.

The British Home Office originally estimated the figure between 5,000 and 13,000 annually.

But government figures released Thursday showed 176,000 citizens from the eight new Eastern European member states registered for work between May 2004 and the end of March.

The Home Office estimates about 58,000 of those who have registered to work were already in the country before the EU expansion in May and it assumes they were working illegally.

The report said the immigrants were making few demands on public services. The number applying for benefits was very low, it said, with just 1,200 applications for income support, jobseeker`s allowance or state pension credit, only 24 of which were cleared past the initial stage of application.

Copyright 2005 by United Press International