Press Archives

Thursday 5 August 2004

Response to today's statement from Migration Watch on Bangladeshi work permit applicants

Tauhid Pasha, Legal and Policy Director of Joint Council for the
Welfare Immigrants, said:

"Beneath the surface of Migration Watch's pretence of economic analysis lie two exceptionally crude assumptions: that Bangladeshi people cannot by definition be British citizens and that all they want to do is work in curry houses.

"Andrew Green overlooks the fact that many young men of Bangladeshi descent were born and educated in this country and one of the reasons they are not working in the hospitality trade may be that they have different career ambitions. Some of them might aspire to be diplomats or barristers. On his simplistic view he might as well say that because too many northerners are unemployed in London no more northerners should be allowed to move to the capital.

"A more sophisticated economic analysis would take account that people may be unemployed for a complex range of reasons: discrimination; lack of affordable housing and transport within reach of employment; and inability to access training and education qualifications; or simply a lack of
job vacancies that are appropriate to one's skills and personal
aspirations".