Current Trends in Migration

Current Migration Trends: Illegal Migration Illegal immigration to Europe does seem to be on the rise although data on this is hard to collect Anywhere between 4 – 8 million illegal African migrants are thought to be in the EU, with the UK having 500,000 of these

Asylum Seekers A refugee is defined as: ‘A well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owning to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country’

Refugees Is the claim for asylum is granted, the refugee is allowed to stay If it is turned down, the immigrant may be deported After peaking in the early 1990s, and again in 2000 – 2001, asylum applications have fallen in the EU

You can see that the majority of asylum seekers were coming from the Middle East in 2001, mainly due to the start of the War on Terror You can see that leading up to early 2000s there was a huge rise in asylum applications between

Movement within Europe Migration between the EU has increased with many nations experiencing positive net migration There is a negative net migration however for the Eastern European countries This is due to a large influx of workers from Eastern Europe, but also from outside the EU as well

EU Open Borders 1995 EU border controls were removed when the Schengen Agreement was put in place. This enabled the easier movements of goods and people (often without passports). The UK did not sign 2004 was the original EU expansion of 8 low income Eastern European countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic). UK allowed free migration of these people (as well as Swtizerland and Ireland) but other EU member states imposed restrictions for up to 7 years.

The Schengen Agreement Pros: EU labour can move to where the demand is This applies to high and low skilled jobs Encourages multiculturalism Cons: People have lost jobs through the undercutting of wages Have caused racial tensions in some communities Malta and Cyprus also joined in 2004, with Bulgaria and Romania in The UK imposed restrictions on movements of these people.

Who is coming to the UK? Large numbers of Polish immigrants are part of UK of the UK worker registration scheme and came seeking work as plumbers, builders, hotel staff or in farming and food production People who have moved to the USA, New Zealand and Australia as professionals and are now returning home Migrants from India and Pakistan who are following early family migrations