Geographical Association

Photo: Kevin Connors

Economic migrants from outside the European Union (including illegal immigrants)

Learning Objectives

• to understand why people migrate from outside the EU to the UK
• to analyse the impact of their migration on the people themselves and their families
• to understand the challenges and benefits that the non-EU immigrants bring to the UK
• to understand why some non-EU people are prepared to risk prison or even risk their life to enter the UK illegally

Learning Outcomes

• an appreciation and understanding of the wide range of reasons for people from non-EU countries to migrate to the UK
• an understanding of the complex feelings and emotions that non-EU immigrants have when living and working in the UK
• deeper knowledge and understanding of the benefits that non-EU immigrants bring and the challenges that have to be dealt with by government and other agencies as well as members of the communities where immigrants live
• knowledge and an understanding of the factors that drive non-EU people to enter the UK illegally

Resources

The main resource used in this session is a section from a DVD called Population Change: Causes, impacts and management of migration, produced by Pumpkin TV in association with the Geographical Association. The DVD contains several short video clips which case study the stories of different types of migrant. You may also find further useful material in the Links and Resources section in the Plenary.

People are free to enter the UK as tourists (in some cases applying for a visa first) and they can also enter to study in the UK if they have an agreed organisation to study at. If people from outside the EU want to work in the UK, they have traditionally had to apply for a work permit and this has usually, but not always, meant having an agreed job to go to. Over the last ten years, those who have entered with work permits have been joined by those who came in as tourists or students but stayed on to work. The final complication is that once workers have settled in the UK, they are able to bring in their families to live in this country.  

Today, the government has a new system in place based on the so-called 'Australian Points System'. In this system, people are only given work permits if they have enough points based on factors such as education and skills. During the recent economic recession, the government announced that they will use the points-based system to 'raise the bar' in order to further reduce the number of migrants coming from non-EU countries. Whilst the points-based system will deal with the shortage of certain types of skilled workers in the UK by giving work permits to people from across the world, it is expected that all manual and low-skilled work will be done by people from the UK or from members of the European Union. In theory, this will prevent everyone from outside the EU seeking work in the UK as cooks, au-pairs, farm labourers and factory workers - not everyone is happy with that situation! 

The data for the decade 1997-2006 shows us that the number of non-EU people entering with work permits went up from 40,000 to 96,000 - a steady increase over this period. Similarly, the number of dependents of these people entering the UK went up from 17,000 to 48,000. Of those coming in with work permits in 1997, over 75% came from the three continents of North America, South America and Asia. In 2006, the picture was pretty much the same.

As for the number of illegal immigrants living in the UK - officially, no-one knows, but see the following two quotes.

Key Resource
'Non-European Economic Migrants' [Pumpkin TV] Clip Length: 8 minutes

The video begins with a short introduction to the history of migration of people from non-European countries to the UK. The case study looks at the story of a male illegal migrant called Mustafa who comes from a country in West Africa. The video gives less personal details in this instance because of the circumstances of the immigrant.

Below is a low quality version of the clip.
The DVD can be purchased at the GA Online Shop.

It is important to give a context to this section of the unit by looking at two aspects:

i) the rules governing immigration into the UK from outside the EU
ii) the numbers of people that are involved both legally and illegally and where they may be coming from

Download: Non EU Immigration Data Sheet 

This data sheet provides a useful starting point to get pupils thinking about the numbers seeking work in the UK from outside Europe and also where these people come from. Pupils could graph the work permit statistics and comment on the trend shown. The 'countries of origin' map provides an opportunity to identify the top 11 countries outside Europe and also to look at and possibly graph the data included on the map as a ranked bar graph. Can the students draw any conclusions about the pattern shown on the map?

The data about non-EU migrants often groups the countries that immigrants come from into 'Old Commonwealth' and 'New Commonwealth' countries. Would these terms mean anything to your pupils? How could you demonstrate the meaning and value of these terms in explaining the geographical patterns that we often see on maps?  

Once pupils have identified which countries the non-EU migrants are coming from, the next question is 'why are they coming to the UK?'. 

Download: Non EU Immigration Data Sheet 2 

This data sheet shows two pieces of evidence that pupils can use to try and answer this question. As always, there are no simple answers but pupils should be able to analyse the evidence and begin to draw some conclusions. 

For those people unable to get a work permit, the Pumpkin TV video provides an opportunity to discuss with the pupils a set of related questions:

a) Are the illegal immigrants coming from the same countries as the legal immigrants?

b) How do the illegal immigrants get into the UK?

c) What problems do the illegal immigrants face if they have no proper paperwork of any kind?

d) Are the illegal immigrants likely to return back to their country of origin?

For question a), of course, there is no proper answer as we don't have reliable statistics. However, evidence based on those who are caught and deported shows us that they come mainly from the poorer parts of the world, particularly the continent of Africa.

For question b), there are a large number of resources available, many of them painting a horrific picture of immigrants taking dangerous risks to get to the UK. The role of criminal gangs who smuggle immigrants into the UK is also a major part of this story. Two examples are given in these news articles:

BBC: 'Lorry driver 'smuggled dead immigrants'

Daily Mail: 'French hold Iraqi duo who smuggled 10,000 immigrants into Britain over two years'

For questions c) and d), the video clip provides a wealth of detail although pupils will need to understand the importance of various kinds of paperwork which are needed in relation to getting work, getting hospital treatment, etc.

A useful way to draw this session together is to get the pupils to think through the role of the police. How do they detect the illegal immigrants as they enter the country? How do they find the illegal immigrants once they are in the UK? The government itself has put forward a number of suggestions and practical ideas to make both of these difficult jobs a little easier.

Another alternative is to take up the suggestion put forward by Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, that there should be an amnesty for the illegal immigrants already in the UK so that they can get proper jobs, pay taxes, etc. This would make an interesting debate that would highlight many of the issues surrounding this very controversial topic.

And finally...

One of the real problems with any work on immigration is that pupils remain confused about the differences between legal and illegal immigrants and between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. How important do you think it is to keep revisiting this idea in an attempt to provide clarification?

<<< Previous Unit                                                                                                          Next Unit >>>