New immigrants in the UK to be quizzed about life in Britain

The survey will include knowing the views of anything between 4,000 to 6,000 new immigrants in the UK, revealed the UK Border Agency (UKBA).

Among those to be included in the UK immigration survey by the border agency will be foreign students, UK Family visa immigrants, refugees, economic migrants and asylum seekers in the UK.

The survey by the UK immigration department will be a face-to-face survey and will include various facts of life and experiences of the immigrants in the UK.

The focus of the UKBA survey will be --------

• positive as well as negative experiences of these immigrants during their life in the UK;

• reasons for their coming in the UK;

• whether they want to live in the UK permanently; 

• use of public services including schools, health care in the UK, libraries, public transport etc. by the immigrants; and 

• their contributions to the UK economy and the society as well. 

The report along with an in-depth detailed analysis of the main findings will be made public in March, 2011.

This analysis will help the UK government frame UK immigration policies accordingly and try to fill the loopholes in the UK immigration, if any. Moreover, the survey findings will also facilitate better assimilation of the new immigrants in the UK into their communities.

The team involved in the survey will conduct interviews of vulnerable immigrants in the UK who either lack basic English skills or are likely to get deported due to their asylum status. 

The survey is likely to cost the UKBA nearly tens of thousands of pounds and this is the reason that the survey is being labeled as ‘ridiculous’ by several including Nicholas Soames, a Tory backbencher, who considers it as a sheer wastage of the money of taxpayers’.

Chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Matthew Elliott stated that the UK government should not waste taxpayers’s money on such foolish things.