Just a couple of articles from the center for immigration studies. I would highly recommend signing up for their free emails. It will not take long to realize the issue of illegal immigration is becoming a global epidemic!



EU to propose penalties against employers of illegal immigrants
Agence France Presse, May 11, 2007
http://www.eubusiness.com/Living_in_EU/1178895618.21

The European Commission will make proposals next week for minimum penalties against employers in the European Union who hire illegal immigrants, an official said Friday.

Under the proposal, to be announced Wednesday, member states would be required to have laws providing for administrative sanctions, fines and even prison sentences in the worst cases for such employers.

Although all member states except Cyprus already have sanctions against employing illegal workers, 'only 14 have provisions for prison sentences,' said EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini's spokesman, Friso Roscam Abbing.

'What's more, the implementation of penalties is very different among member states,' with some more lax than others, distorting competition among companies, he said

The draft law would also allow immigrants to lodge complaints against their employers and demand unpaid wages.

If they cooperate with police and return home, they could also receive temporary permits that would allow them to take action against their employer.

'It's a law against illegal immigration, but the philosophy is to target employers, not the immigrants,' Roscam Abbing said. 'We want to fight the exploitation of illegal immigrants.'

Between four to eight million people are estimated to be living illegally in the 27-nation EU, with 500,000 illegal immigrants arriving every year.

The draft law, which would only concern workers from outside the EU, would need backing by a qualified majority of member states and the European Parliament to go ahead.

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3.
50,000 a month arrive from two new EU nations
By Steve Dougherty
The Daily Mail (U.K.), May 10, 2007
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770

The number of visitors from Eastern Europe has risen by a quarter since Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, a Government survey has revealed.

The first count taken since the beginning of the year shows there were around 50,000 arrivals each month from the two new members.

The count, at ports and airports, suggests that warnings of a new flood of immigrants could be coming true.

The number of Eastern European immigrants flooding in to Britain has shot up by a quarter

The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, quantify visitors from around the world who said their stay in Britain would be temporary.

But on past evidence it would be no surprise if the east European 'visitors' decided to stay longer.

There is no time restriction on them, though they must apply for permits if they want to work.

In the first three months of 2006 the number of visitors from Eastern Europe - the eight countries including Poland that came into the EU in April 2004 - was 540,000.

But in the first three months of this year, after Romania and Bulgaria joined, the number rose to 680,000, an increase of 25 per cent.

In March 2007 some 230,000 visitors arrived from the member countries of Eastern Europe, 57,000 more than in the same month last year.

The increases come against a background of rapidly-rising numbers of arrivals and migrants from Eastern Europe as a whole since the British labour market opened to them in 2004.

The figures are, admittedly, subject to the vagaries of the International Passenger Survey, the heavily- discredited Government survey used to plot levels of immigration and emigration. Officials are desperately searching for a more accurate way to count.
Nevertheless they add to anecdotal evidence that Romanians and Bulgarians are taking advantage of the unrestricted entry to Britain that EU membership has given them.

Last week the Daily Mail told how 80 members of the extended Demetrie family from the Romanian village of Tanderei recently settled in the Thames Valley town of Slough.

The Mail also revealed that police officers serving in Westminster in central London have been given a translation guide to help them deal with growing numbers of Romanians.

A flood of migration from Romania and Bulgaria would compound the huge numbers of Eastern Europeans who have chosen to live and work in Britain since 2004.

The Home Office predicted that 13,000 people a year would come to live in Britain from Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Although there is no accurate estimate of numbers who have actually arrived, ministers accept that it is more than 600,000. Among these, 400,000 are thought to be Polish.

Critics of the Government's immigration policies were scathing about the new figures.

Robert Whelan of the Civitas think tank said, 'We just don't have an immigration policy. Anyone who wants to come, can come.

'Everybody knew that expanding the European Union would lead to a flood of new migrants.

'The Government kept denying the numbers would be significant, but they are significant.

'This is not a sudden boom that will die away. This is permanent. There is no end in sight to high levels of immigration, and the Government has no will or means of tackling it.'

Ministers have limited the number of work visas to be given to unskilled workers from Romania and Bulgaria to 20,000 a year.

But the restrictions, which permit the self-employed complete freedom to work in Britain, are thought by many to be highly ineffective.

The figures for all overseas visitors show that in the three months to March this year, the number rose two per cent to 8.5 million.

The money they spent went down by two per cent to £3.7billion.