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Berlin conference on immigration

01 January 1991

Berlin conference on immigration
bacdoc February=1992

The UK Home Secretary, Kenneth Baker, attended the Berlin
Conference on Immigration. This conference was a follow-up on the
meeting in Vienna nine months before.

Mr Baker favoured practical co-operation in welcoming "the
creation under the Vienna process of a clearing house for
exchanges of information" rather than the creation of new
institutions.

He said, in part, that

"There are considerable migratory pressures building up and they
are fuelled by the difficulties faced by all the economies of
Eastern Europe as they move to market economies. We recognise
that uncontrolled migration would have adverse consequences. The
sending countries could lose many of the skilled workers vital
to their economic development. The receiving countries cannot
easily absorb large additional numbers of immigrants. This
Conference gives us the opportunity to address in greater detail
one aspect of those problems, the question of how to hold illegal
immigration in check....

I think it is crucially important to strengthen and build upon
existing border controls, and to increase cooperation among
immigration and border control services. I am sure that this is
the right approach, and that we should be concentrating our
efforts on effective, practical measure rather than seeking to
create new institutions or binding inflexible international
conventions.....

There is an old saying that prevention is better than cure, and
this is certainly true when dealing with illegal or irregular
immigration. In the United Kingdom, we have legal powers to
remove those who have entered clandestinely or by deception. We
also have powers, subject to a right of appeal, to deport those
who enter legally but remain beyond the period of their permitted
stay or break their conditions of entry. Over 4,000 people were
removed under these powers in 1990. I am glad to see that the
draft communique endorses the swift return of illegal immigrants.

Home Office press release 30.10.91.