No blanket amnesty to illegal immigrants: UK

"Over 1,000 case workers are currently engaged in making decisions on case by case," Immigration Minister Liam Byrne said at a seminar on immigration organised by the Ethnic Minority Citizens Forum in London on Thursday night.

Faced with a barrage of complaints about the "disastrous" impact of the new immigration system on Indian restaurants in the UK and the accute shortage of low-skilled workers in the curry houses, the minister said the current visa system needed an overhauling as it was "clumsy, outdated and wretched."

He sought cooperation from the Chinese and Indian communities to make the new points-based immigration system "fair and stable". At the moment there were 80 different ways in which immigrants could come to the UK.

"We want to make the immigration system simpler, fair and stable," Byrne, who recently took a cross-party delegation of Asian community leaders to India, said.

The points-based system will allow non-European migrants in the country only if they can prove that there is shortage of their skills in the UK and has been criticised as discriminatory.

Byrne said he would publish a blueprint of the new immigration system in a month's time. Besides, the Migration Advisory Committee, an independent committee, will publish a list showing occupational shortages.

The Minister, however, rejected a proposal for a cap on immigration.

"I reject emphatically that there should be a cap on immigration. There are over tens of thousands of students in Britain contributing 8.3 billion pounds student fee annually and how can we put a cap on them," Byrne asked.

On complaints of series of raids conducted by the Enforcement Directorate on Bangladeshi-run Indian restaurants here during the last few days, Byrne said he would talk to the Director of Enforcement about it.

During the seminar, some of the hotel representatives claimed that the 10,000-strong Indian restaurant industry, with a turn-over of 3.5 billion pounds annually and employing 250,000 persons directly or indirectly, was on the verge of collapse owing to accute shortage of low-skilled workers and sporadic raids by enforcement directorate to detect illegal workers.

They wanted the minister to open up the Tier III in the new points based system facilitating low-skilled hotel workers to come here for short periods.

Jabez Lam, Chinese Immigration Concern Committee, said in China Town in London, a number of Chinese restaurants were closing down owing to shortage of low skilled workers.

The Minister said Government was currently focusing on removal of foreign national prisoners from the country and over 4,000 were sent from the UK last year.

The second focus was to remove illegal workers, who were not only being exploited by the employers, they were also not paying any tax.

"We are making it easier for employers to engage legal workers by providing them ID cards," Byrne said.

The minister admitted that it would be difficult to eradicate the right of appeal by failed visa seekers, as proposed in the new immigration system.

"Immigration system is a human process and we want to make the new points based system, which will come into force from November this year, as simple as possible," Byrne said.

Syed Nahas Pasha, Editor in Chief of Curry Life Magazine, said there was chaos in the hotel business in Bricklane, dominated by Bangladeshis because of the "heavy handed approach" adopted by the enforcement directorate through their raids particularly during the peak business period.

Maria Fernandes, Chair, EM Citizens Forum, said restraints imposed on employing low skilled workers would force small restaurants to close down.