US to order 500,000 citizens of four countries to leave
During his time in office Biden expanded the protection, which is called "humanitarian parole" and dates back to the Cold War, due to conditions in each of the four countries.The DHS previously said that through the end of November 2024, a total of 531,670 people were granted permission to stay in the US under the programme, and that as a result, illegal crossings from citizens of the four countries had decreased by 98%.It's unclear exactly how many people will be affected by the new directive, however, as some of the immigrants from those countries may have acquired legal status to remain in the US under other visa programmes.The Biden administration had said the immigrants, who each required a US-based sponsor, were screened and vetted. However, the Trump administration disagreed.DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called the Biden-era programme "disastrous" and in a statement said it opened the door for fraudulent claims and crime and it undercut American workers.The programme became an issue during last year's presidential campaign, particularly when Trump and his allies focused attention on cities like Springfield, Ohio, which in recent years has seen a large influx of Haitian immigrants - many of whom were permitted to stay in the country under the programme.Trump and others made inflammatory statements about Haitian immigrants eating pets, which were found to be lacking in evidence. However, Trump's running mate, Vice-President JD Vance, defended what he described as "creating a story" to highlight high levels of immigration and what he called "the suffering of the American people."President Trump cancelled Biden's order on parole with an executive order of his own shortly after he took office in January. In May the Supreme Court upheld his suspension of the humanitarian parole programme while a legal battle continues in lower courts.The DHS has promised travel assistance and a $1,000 "exit bonus" to migrants without legal permission to be in the US who voluntarily leave the country.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
‘Serious problems' with UK's reliance on migration, warns OBR official
Immigration is creating 'serious problems' for public services and living standards, a senior official at the Government's fiscal watchdog has warned. David Miles, an executive at the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), said Labour must prioritise getting Britons back to work instead of relying on overseas workers to grow the economy. Only by achieving this will Sir Keir Starmer be able to slash the welfare bill and tackle the country's 'explosive' debt pile. The economics professor, who has also served on the Bank of England's interest rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee, said the UK was already on course to become the most populous country in Europe by the middle of this century. He added that depending on an increasing population to expand the economy 'could not be sustained', as migrants themselves use schools, hospitals and other public services as they get older, have children and become eligible to claim benefits. Writing in an essay published by the Common Good Foundation, Mr Miles said: 'Immigration – which primarily involves those of working age who are many years away from retirement – both delays the impact of the ageing of the population and is the driver of population growth. 'Some conclude from this that a faster rise in the population ... will be beneficial in alleviating acute underlying fiscal pressures. 'But, even setting aside the fact that it is GDP per capita that matters for average standards of living – and growth in population does not obviously boost it – there are serious problems with the idea that faster population growth can consistently alleviate fiscal problems.' Mr Miles also suggested that tackling worklessness among working-age Britons was more important than attracting the most highly paid migrants to the UK. Almost the entire rise in economic inactivity since Covid has been driven by people born in the UK, many of whom are also claiming sickness benefits that do not require them to look for work. Mr Miles said: 'The fiscal benefits of raising the incomes of those who are born in the UK and who might be on a trajectory of consistently below average wages are as great as the benefits of having more people come and stay in the UK with average or, especially, well above average earnings.' It comes after the OBR has faced scrutiny for overstating the economic benefits of migration, with Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir's chief of staff, reportedly concerned that the watchdog does not properly account for the burden on public services. The watchdog has previously admitted that low-paid migrant workers are a drain on the public purse – costing taxpayers more than £150,000 each by the time they hit state pension age. However, calls for restrictions on overseas workers are likely to be uncomfortable reading for Rachel Reeves, with Treasury officials warning successive chancellors that a big reduction in migration would substantially reduce the Government's headroom. Ms Reeves is already likely to have to raise taxes by £20bn this autumn, following a series of about-turns on welfare and winter fuel payments. 'Substantial' burden Official data shows that immigration has fuelled the two biggest population increases in peacetime. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has found that the population of England and Wales grew by more than 700,000 in the year to June 2024 to nearly 62 million. This is the second-biggest annual jump since records began in 1949 and only beaten by the 800,000 rise in the population in the previous 12 months. This stemmed from record rises in net migration – the number of people entering the UK minus those leaving. Mr Miles said continuing these trends was unsustainable because it would pile a 'substantial' burden on the public finances. He highlighted that even if all the future migrants arriving in the UK were all aged 24 and would not reach retirement for more than four decades, the population would have to rise by 20m to balance the split between pensioners and workers. He said: 'Twenty million extra young people would need to arrive in the UK over the next 40 years to stabilise the dependency ratio at its current level. That would imply a UK population of around 100 million by 2064.' Worklessness crisis OBR analysis published last year showed the average low-earner who comes to Britain aged 25 costs the Government more overall than they pay in from the moment they arrive. The cumulative bill rises to an estimated £150,000 each by the time they can claim the state pension at 66, according to the watchdog. This is because low-paid migrants, who the OBR assumes earn half the average wage, demand more from public services compared to what they contribute in tax. Mr Miles suggested that tackling the substantial rise in young Britons claiming they are too sick to even look for work would be more beneficial for the public purse. He said: 'The fiscal benefits of helping people, especially young people who potentially have many years of work ahead of them, back into employment are substantial. 'There is a great deal of evidence that mental health in particular is typically improved by being in work. And mental health problems have been a very significant factor behind the recent rise in illness-related inactivity.' Calls for lower migration come amid growing scrutiny of the UK's benefits bill, particularly after Labour watered down welfare reforms earlier this year following a backbench rebellion. The benefits bill for people on sickness or disability benefits is currently on course to hit £100bn by the end of the decade. Mr Miles said: 'The higher population route to fiscal sustainability by slowing the ageing of the population is uncertain. Today's young people are tomorrow's old people, so fiscal benefits fade. And the rise in the population needed to completely offset ageing in demographic structure is very great and gets bigger over time. It could not be sustained.'
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Universities face ban on foreign students over asylum 'backdoor' rules
Universities are set to be banned from accepting foreign students if they fail to stop their courses being used as a 'back door' for asylum claims, it has emerged. The Government is expected to announce plans next month to clamp down on the number of migrants using study visas to enter Britain before claiming asylum. Home Office figures show that 16,000 of those who claimed asylum last year had arrived in the UK on a study visa. According to The Times, universities will be penalised if fewer than 95 per cent of international students accepted on to a course start their studies, or fewer than 90 per cent continue to the end. Labour's plans will also reportedly see institutions that accept foreign students face sanctions if more than 5 per cent of their visas are rejected. The worst-performing universities are set to be named and shamed as part of the crackdown, with limits imposed on the number of new foreign students they can recruit until they improve. Those that fail to do so will be stripped of their ability to sponsor study visas altogether, the newspaper reported. There were 108,000 people who claimed asylum in the UK in 2024, of which slightly more than one third (40,000) did so after travelling to Britain on a visa. This was more than the 35,000 migrants that arrived on small boats without permission to enter the UK. Almost 10,000 people who claimed asylum after having entered on a visa were provided with asylum support in the form of accommodation during 2024. The Home Office said, of those asylum seekers who had originally entered on a visa and are currently in supported accommodation - regardless of the year of their claim - the most common nationalities were Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka. Tory MP Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said Labour's plans represented 'minor tinkering around the edges'. He called for a complete ban on people on study visas being able to claim asylum. 'These proposals amount to minor tinkering around the edges and will make little real difference, which is typical of announcements by this Government,' Mr Philp said. 'Far too many foreign students are using the pretext of study as a route into the UK. Some courses are extremely low quality and have students who barely speak any English. A number of universities are essentially selling UK visas rather than selling an education. This abuse needs to be shut down. The last Conservative government rightly ended the farce of students being able to bring family in with them but a lot more real action is now needed. No one who says they are coming here as a student should be able to later claim asylum or use a student visa as a basis to be able to stay permanently.' It comes as the Home Office is giving £100million in extra funding to support the pilot of a new 'one in, one out' returns agreement between the UK and France and other efforts to crack down on small boat crossings. The cash will also pay for up to 300 more National Crime Agency (NCA) officers and new technology and equipment to step up intelligence-gathering on smuggling gangs. There will be more overtime for immigration compliance and enforcement teams as well as funding for interventions in transit countries across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Labour is seeking to deter smuggling gangs in a bid to bring down small boat crossings, which have topped 25,000 for the year so far - a record for this point in the year. The 'one in, one out' deal agreed last month means the UK will for the first time be able to send migrants back to France in exchange for asylum seekers with links to Britain. Anyone who advertises small boat crossings or fake passports on social media could be face up to five years in prison under a new offence to be introduced under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper (pictured) said Labour had set the foundations for a 'new and much stronger law enforcement approach' over the last year. She said: 'Now this additional funding will strengthen every aspect of our plan and will turbo-charge the ability of our law enforcement agencies to track the gangs and bring them down, working with our partners overseas, and using state-of-the-art technology and equipment. Alongside our new agreements with France, this will help us drive forward our plan for change commitments to protect the UK's border security and restore order to our immigration system.'
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Starmer should ‘catch and release' migrants, says US border tsar
Sir Keir Starmer should 'take a page' out of Donald Trump's playbook to solve Britain's immigration crisis, America's border tsar has said. Tom Homan encouraged the Prime Minister to mimic the pugnacious tactics of the Trump admiration by ruthlessly catching and deporting migrants that arrive on Britain's shores. 'Take a page out of the Trump playbook. Two months ago, we had the lowest numbers of crossings in the history of the nation,' Mr Homan told The Telegraph. 'The next month, we broke that record, and this month we're gonna break it again. I would simply look at the Trump and release. 'If they enter the country illegally, they should be detained and put in front of the judge. And if they get voted to be removed, remove them.' Mr Homan, a former police officer who has also served as acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is the public face of Mr Trump's operation to deport as many as a million people in a year. So far, he and his team have deported around 207,000 illegal migrants who illegally crossed America's southern border with Mexico onto US soil in the last three months, a new record. In Britain, more than 25,000 people have crossed the English Channel to the UK in 2025, the highest total this early in the year. 'There has to be consequences. One of the reasons we have the most secure border in the history of this nation.. [is because] we also send a message to the whole world that there's gonna be consequences,' Mr Homan added. Since returning to the Oval Office, Mr Trump has effectively shut down the US's southern border and ordered the round-up and deportation of undocumented migrants. The National Guard and US Marines have been called in to quell protests and support immigration agents carrying out the round-ups in cities like Los Angeles. In Britain, figures such as Nigel Farage, the Reform Party leader, have repeatedly accused Sir Keir of failing to follow a similar course. 'You can't have strong national security if you don't have border security,' Mr Homan added. 'President Trump has the most secure border of my lifetime. I suggest your government, look at what Trump did and take a page out of his playbook and I guarantee it's going to be the same outcome.' Fresh protests erupted in Britain this week amid growing frustration with the decision to house illegal migrants in taxpayer funded hotels. Sir Keir has pledged to end their use by 2029 amid concerns that they are costing taxpayers £4m a day and causing tensions in communities. Tensions over the hotels reached boiling point last month when demonstrations broke out at a hotel in Epping after a migrant tried to kiss a teenager. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, has told the Cabinet the Government must take concerns about immigration seriously and do more to alleviate them. Mr Trump's administration has grown increasingly concerned with migration in Europe. JD Vance, the vice-president, accused the continent of engaging in 'civilisational suicide' by refusing to control its borders. Offering the Prime Minister some advice, Mr Trump told him he would have a better chance of holding back the threat posed by Mr Farage if he made it a priority to tackle immigration.
