IMMIGRATION CONTROL PLATFORM
NEWSLETTER NO. 27March 2015
AGM
The AGM was held in Dublin on Saturday 20 September 2014. The Executive Committee was elected. The following motions were passed:-
1 I.C.P. calls on the Ministers for Justice and Education to reject calls for the right of asylum seekers to free third level education on the three grounds that
a) Since most asylum seekers in Ireland, as elsewhere, are found to be abusing the system and not deserving of protection, it is unjust that such a privilege be extended to them at the expense of the Irish citizenry.
b) It is against principles of fairness that non-EU people with residency rights here should not be entitled to this, when those without such residency rights get it.
c) MOST IMPORTANTLY, that such a move would be calculated to greatly increase the inflow of " unaccompanied minors", which is the most burdensome area of asylum seeking.
2 I.C.P. seeks a constitutional referendum to change Article 34.3.1 of the constitution by adding the words "apart from matters of international protection, immigration and deportation", so that there will be no judicial review available in relation to those matters.
3 I.C.P. deplores the grossly excessive liberality in relation to work permits which is the 50:50 rule (i.e. to be granted a work permit one must have at least 50% EU employees).
4 This AGM calls on the government to control advertisements solely in foreign languages by employers and agents in Ireland who recruit non-Irish labour to the detriment of Irish job-seekers' chances of finding employment.
Working Group on Direct Provision
This Working Group is to report probably before Easter. We sent a submission to the Working Group making 3 points:-
1 The direct provision system should continue.
2 Asylum seekers should not be given the right to work.
3 We emphasised most particularly the point we made in motion No. 1 of the AGM i.e. that free third level education should not be granted. (We are fairly confident that items 1 and 2 will not happen anyway).
We had previously written to the Minister for Education making the same point.
Regularisation of Illegals
On February 25 the migrants rights Centre Ireland, together with a Filipino illegal immigrant of 11 years standing, made a presentation to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. They were seeking to have a scheme introduced to regularlise illegals which they estimated to be between 20,000 and 26,000. They claimed that this would bring in about €185 million over five years.
The arguments presented by MRCI may be seen by accessing the Oireachtas website for the debates of that date.
We contacted the committee seeking to present before them with a counter argument. The routine is that you send in a submission and the committee may subsequently ask you to present before them. The following submission has gone to the committee.
Submission of Immigration Control Platform
A counter-argument to the MRCI presentation of Feb.25, 2015 seeking a scheme to regularise illegal immigrants.
1 We would like to begin this submission by reminding the committee that the two most fundamental duties of a state, before any modern accretions, are the maintenance of law and order and the defence of the borders of the State.
In the modern world, at least in this part of it, thankfully, that defence of the borders of the State is no longer against military attack, but against illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration is the modern form of invasion. This is readily seenwhen one sees images of boats heading like an armada across the Mediterranean,or people scaling the fence at the Spanish enclave of Melilla in North Africa; but it is no less invasion when it is the more secretive or clandestine type of illegal immigration experienced in Ireland.
2 As the MRCI said in their submission, there are many different types. It may be so-called "students" whose intention was to abuse the system to gain access to the labour market. This has led to the recent and belated closure of facilitating colleges. It may be people issued with deportation orders who went on the run and many other categories.
3 In all cases, these are people who are effectively giving two fingers to the State and its citizens , and saying "No, you won't decide who comes to live here and what limits therewill be. We willcome and will stay if we want. We will decide, not you."
The State is not an abstraction; it is us collectively. The defiance of the State which is illegal immigration is an offence committed against the citizens of Ireland. If we had a better civic spirit and a better civic identity in this country, that would be better understood.
The following quotation is from the inaugural Martin Tansey lecture given in 2008 by Sean Aylward, then Secretary General of the Department of Justice . "We try to operate a system which is humane and sensible while at the same timerecognising the fact that it is the absolute right and bounden duty of every sovereign state to control its borders, in the interests of its citizens.Any state which does not manage this task effectively is or will become a failed state. That is the reality ."
We would particularly emphasise the phrase "bounden duty". We hear of the right of states to control their borders but we never hear of the duty of the state to do so, and in the interests of its citizens. Dealing with illegal immigration is part of that defence of the borders and it is not done by saying "It's o.k. You can stay."
4 Ireland now has one of the higher levels of immigrants per head of population in the EU as shown by recent Eurostat figures, but the authorities, and particularly politicians, have not woken up to that fact. The level of deportations of illegals is risible-mere tokenism. In 2014, we deported 111 (including failed asylum seekers and illegals; we don't have a breakdown) and there were 237 voluntary returns; a grand total of 348.
In contrast, the following figures come from the Migration Observatory at Oxford.
" In 2013, 50,741 people were removed from the UK or departed voluntarily after the initiation of removal. This figure excludes individuals refused entry at port and subsequently removed, in order to focus more clearly on what most people understand by deportation."
The UK's population is about 14 times that of Ireland. Aproportionate level of deportation from Ireland would give a deportation figure of 3,624, more than ten times the actual figure.
5 In their presentation to the committee on Feb. 25th, the MRCI claimed that their proposed scheme of regularisation would result in a fiscal gain to the State of €185 million over five years, i.e. €37 million in a year.
They failed to take account, however, of the fact that each illegal immigrant in a job displaces an Irish citizen or legal immigrant who should be in that job.
If we take even the lowest figure of 20,000 illegals given by MRCI and their figure of 87% working, that gives us a figure of 17,400 illegals in jobs which should be held by people who, instead, are on Jobseekers Allowance.
The cost to the State of Jobseekers allowance for that number of people is over €170 million per annum.
(Rounding figures for clarity, Jobseekers Allowance is just under €10,000 per annum; by 17,000 that gives us €170 million.)
6 To put it another way, deporting an illegal immigrant, at the most recent figures we have, costs about €3,500. (This figure comes from an answer to a parliamentary question by Minister Shatter to Deputy Catherine Murphy on June 20th 2012.)
In light of the figures we have given above, the €3,500 will be recouped from a mere 4months or so of savingson the Jobseekers Allowance foregone.
7 In our view, these figures show the massive monetary harm done to Irish workers and to the State by illegal immigrants. The committee might be interestedin the text of an email received by ICP on October 30th last. It reads:
" Dear Sir/Madam,
Where is the best place to report illegal immigrants who work in Ireland? My wife is about to lose her job to an undocumented Chinesegirl. I must stress my wife is also Chinese but is married to myself , an Irish national, and she has worked here paying tax for the last ten years. She is being let go as she is here legally."
We have not even touched on the further harm which is caused by the downward pressure on wages caused by the employment of illegal immigrants.
8 The Department of Justice has worked very reasonably with the MRCI, as they have admitted, in dealing with people who were no longer legally present through no fault of their own. We emphasise through no fault of their own;when they had, perhaps, been assured by their employers that their work permit had been renewed and then found thatit had not. A scheme was set up to help such people which has now been renamed the " reactivation scheme " and is administered by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We have no objection to such a scheme because there is no brazen defiance of the laws of the State involved.
9 This reasonableness has been a hallmark of the authorities. When Dermot Ahern introduced belated reforms to deal with student visa abuse, one of them was a seven-year maximum on the length of time one could be on a student visa. This was introduced with great consideration and leeway during the transitional period. For example, if someone was half-way through a course, they were allowed to finish it.
That consideration was acceptable. What was not acceptable was what Minister Shatter did in the 2004 Student Probationary Extension scheme, where he tore up that seven-year maximum and gave an effective amnesty to 2,661 students who had exceeded the seven-year maximum, plus an unknown number of spouses and children.Those 2,661 were told"You may stayand work in Ireland forever", keeping 2,661 Irish or legal immigrants on Jobseekers Allowance.
10We want to see no more of that injustice done to our citizens by an amnesty for illegals and no amount of dressing up a scheme with "criteria" will change it from being effectively an amnesty.
What is happening behind the scenes and under the radar
If an asylum applicant is refused refugee status and also refused subsidiary protection they are issued with a notification of intention to deport but have a given number of days in which they may give reasons why they should not be deported. This is effectively an application for “leave to remain”. Having been refused the first two it should, most people would agree, be only under exceptional circumstances that such leave to remain should be given. This is at the discretion of the Minister. During the fuss and protests about direct provision some months ago an asylum advocate remarked in a television discussion that most asylum applicants who eventually get residency, get it not as refugee status or subsidiary production but as “leave to remain”. advocates like that are in a position to know because of their personal contacts with asylum seekers.
This was new information for us and we are currently in the process of trying to establish the comparative figures. However a startling and confirmative fact has come to light which appears to show that a block granting of leave to remain is being used to clear backlogs and avoid deportation.
In a Seanad debate of 22nd October 2014 during a Private Members Bill brought by David Norris, Trevor Ó Clochartaigh of Sinn Féin made an astonishing revelation. He referred to people getting leave to remain “...when offered this under an ad hoc scheme operated by the Department of Justice and Equality, the most recent of which is for those resident for five years prior to April 2014...”
Who was aware of such a scheme and that it was not, in light of the above quotation, the first of its kind? This is the abuse perpetrated on Irish people who have the right to expect that the asylum system is imposed on them on the basis that if you pass you stay; if you fail you leave. Instead, the whole expensive and burdensome system is a useless charade, when schemes like this are introduced.
Fianna Fáil exceeds the MRCI in its zeal to legalise illegals
The MRCI has been the advocate par excellence for regularising illegal immigrants. But even they, in their suggested scheme to the Dáil committee on February 25th did not go as far as Niall Collins did in the Private Members Bill he introduced to the Dáil on March 5th. The MRCI had suggested regularising those who had been here 4 years. Collins wants to be twice as “generous” and regularise those who have been here for 2 years.
Immigration Control Platform, PO Box 6469, Dublin 2
Email: 087 7923375