Migration in United Kingdom Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Migration in United Kingdom - Essay Example However, asylum seekers cannot be mistaken for refugees. In the year 2002, it was found that from 84, 130 applications 10 percent were refugees, 24 percent were granted exceptional level and the remaining amount were refused both.( McConnachie 2005) This paper would seek to analyze the role of the immigration policies in regard to the asylum seekers. At present, the United Kingdom is facing a major crisis in regard to illegal immigration. In fact, from the year 19991 to the year 2001 alone, immigration made up more than half of Britain's population growth. An institute for Public Policy Research study of the 2001 census calculated a 2.2 m rise, including 1.14 m born abroad. Westminster is recognized as the official law making authority regarding matters such as immigration and asylum issues in regard to Britain and those that happen outside the European Union enabling control and allowing control over the borders. The United Kingdom provides an automatic right to asylum as it has signed the UN convention. A lengthy legal process has to be initiated in order for the determination of the status of application. However in order to ensure that the process becomes more simpler and allows the honest applicant s to actually gain the right to have the status of asylum seeking, this automatic right has to be waived or done away with. An important distinction as to be made between asylum seekers and refugees- Refugees are those people who have be granted this special status by the country in which they have sought asylum. The current population in the United Kingdom alone of refugees is about 2 percent of the total world refugees. These people have UN traveling documents and have the same basic rights as the U.K. citizens in terms of traveling and the basic service. Hence, it is quite difficult to figure out exactly how many are at present in the U.K. Another type of immigrants are illegal immigrants who at presently are several thousands according to a survey by carried out recently. These people are those who are employed in the unregulated economy of U.K. Besides encouraging the international human traffickers and smugglers, it is resulting in pushing down the lower skilled jobs wags due to an excess supply. Hence, creating cultural cases as the British feel that their jobs are being threatened by the influx of these illegal immigrants. An Act; the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 regulates the ways of tackling these illegal immigrants. Those employers who would hire these people would be severely fined and a smart card provision is being considered in order to remove the chances of illegal immigrants being allowed to work. However, whether this has been a successful policy can be seen from the number of cases which are reported daily as deported ones. U.K. needs to review its current policy and make it much more stringent in order to make it so unfavorable that no immigrant would consider U.K. a safe haven. While it has been generally notified that asylum seekers are those people who are victims of crime and injustice-however, in several cases that has not been the case. There are many people who come to U.K. illegally, seek work in the unregulated circles and when are discovered, claim to be asylum seekers. Others are those