We have written a brief guide to the immigration policies of the main parties, as outlines in their manifestos.

Please read and use your vote wisely!

Conservative Party
EEA Migration:

• Commit to aim of having net migration in the ‘tens of thousands’
• EU nationals to be eligible for tax credits and child benefit only after four years of making contributions
• In-Out referendum on membership of the EU
• Bar EU nationals from social housing until they have lived in the UK for four years
• Barring EU nationals from claiming job-seeking benefits
• Removing EU nationals from the UK if they are unemployed for a period of 6 months
• Rules making it easier to deport EU nationals who commit crimes
• Strengthening re-entry bans for EU nationals who ‘abuse’ free movement
• Introduce income threshold and English language test for EU national spouses

Non-EEA migration:

• Maintaining cap of skilled migrants to 20,700
• Introducing sanctions for sponsor colleges or businesses when migrants fail to comply with the terms of their visas
• Remove all non-asylum applicants after refusal and make them appeal from abroad
• Introduce satellite tracking for foreign national criminals awaiting deportation
• Make all landlords check the immigration status of tenants

Labour Party

• Prevent EU migrants from claiming benefits until they have been resident for two years
• Charges for non-visa nationals coming to the UK
• ‘Stronger controls’ to prevent those who have committed serious crimes from coming to the UK
• Keeping the cap on workers coming to the UK
• A law on preventing employers from undercutting wages and exploiting workers
• An end to indefinite detention and the detention of pregnant women and victims of sexual abuse or trafficking

Liberal Democrats

• Remain in the EU
• Continue to allow high-skill immigration
• Re-instate Post-study work visa for Science, Technology Engineering and Maths graduates
• End indefinite detention
• Require working age asylum seekers to work once they have been waiting more than six months for their claim to be processed
• Ensure applications are processed quickly
• Deport people with no right to stay
• Reduce the time genuine refugees have to wait before they can settle into life in the UK
• Take tough actions against educational institutions that allow abuse of the student route into the UK
• Present to Parliament an annual assessment of skill and labour market shortfalls

Green Party

• Reject open borders approach
• Reject an arbitrary numerical cap on net migration
• Respecting the legal obligations within the EU on freedom of movement
• Abolition of the £18,600 maintenance threshold for spousal visas
• Make it easier for UK nationals to sponsor adult dependents, especially elderly parents
• Allow foreign students to work for two years after graduation
• Widen the Youth Mobility scheme to allow those from poorer countries to participate
• Review the rules for those wishing to do business here to ensure they are not discriminatory against smaller businesses
• Not simply accept people just because they are rich
• Immediately stop the detention of women and children
• Reintroduce legal aid for reasonable levels of immigration and asylum workMake English or Welsh language lessons available to all new immigrants, either free or affordable
• Open up ways for existing irregular migrants who have been here for three years to become legal
  businesses

UKIP

• Take back control of borders
• Leave the EU
• Increase the numbers of ‘Border Agency’ staff
• Better identification of overstayers
• Put a five-year moratorium on immigration for unskilled workers
• Introduce an Australian-style points based system
• Limit highly skilled work visas to 50,000, including those from within the EU
• Require skilled workers to have medical insurance for a five year period
• Scrap ILR and allow citizenship for skilled workers who have worked and paid tax here for five years
• Reform of visit visas to allow for reciprocal arrangements
• Require undergraduate and post-graduate students to have private health insurance
• Abolish EEA family permits
• Re-introduce the Primary Purpose rule
• Review the ‘family union system’
• Refuse NHS treatment (other than emergency access) for five years to all migrants
• Tackle the problem of sham marriages
• Foreign criminals barred from getting visas
• All resident migrants who receive custodial sentences will be held in detention and then deported