Resumen de Tightening immigration policies and labour market impacts

Sonia McKay, Tessa Wright

• The opening up of the European Union has encouraged a shutting down of borders to third-country nationals and in almost every Member State measures have been put in place to restrict such immigration. The consequences, as this article demonstrates, will be first to drive more people into undocumented status, with an accompanying worsening of employment rights and secondly, to racialise migration, through entry rights being denied primarily to those from the developing South. The UK is introducing a points-based system that limits entry from outside the EU to the highly skilled, and the government is at the same time targeting 'illegal working'. Based on recent interviews, this article demonstrates the immediate and negative impact of some of these measures on migrants already working in the UK.