Labour's policies on asylum and immigration

The protection of our borders is fundamental to the future of our country. We are committed to building on the progress we have made to create a system in which people can have confidence, which protects the security of the United Kingdom, prevents abuse of our laws, and is fair to both legal migrants and the British public. We are building an immigration system fit for the 21st century, one which benefits Britain.

Key Achievements:

• Asylum applications are at their lowest level for 14 years. The fall has been dramatic from over 80,000 asylum claims in 2000 to around 23,600 in 2006. In 2006, for the first time ever, we removed more failed asylum seekers than those making unfounded claims.
• In 2007, we removed an immigration offender on average, every 8 minutes.
• In April we launched the new UK Border Agency - a single border force combining immigration, customs and visas, with new police-like powers.
• We have tripled the number of staff who work on border control, and enforcement of Britain’s border controls now starts overseas. Since January 2008, we check everyone’s fingerprint before we issue a visa. So far we have enrolled over 1,000,000 people and have matched over 10,000 fingerprints in connection with previous immigration matters
• Since February 2008 rogue employers face civil penalties of up to £10,000 for each illegal worker they employ. Those found to have knowingly hired illegal workers can incur an unlimited fine and be sent to prison.

Winning the fight for Britain's future:

Labour knows that we all want strong borders and a fair deal. That is why Labour is delivering the biggest changes to our immigration, citizenship and border security system for decades. Our changes include:

• A new Australian-style points system (which began in February 2008) to ensure only those migrants we need can come to work and study in the UK.
• A single border force to guard our ports and airports, with police-like powers for frontline staff
• Compulsory ID cards for foreign nationals who come here to work or study (which began in Nov 2008)
• New electronic border controls will be counting people in and out of the country by 2010
• We will activate powers to automatically deport foreign national rule-breakers. We will confirm our targets to deport more foreign nationals prisoners than ever before. And we will expand our detention estate to lift the number of people we remove from Britain.
• We will introduce legislation to reform the immigration system and set out a new agenda of earned citizenship where the rights and responsibilities of becoming a British Citizen have to be earned. This will ensure that only those who share our values can earn the right to stay by clearly spelling out the rights and obligations of legal immigrants to Britain, as well as the requirements for earning British citizenship - including learning English, paying tax and becoming self sufficient and obeying the law. We will also ask new migrants to pay into a fund to help manage the transitional costs associated with migration.