Immigrants 'need more help to adjust'


Immigrants should be integrated into the British way of life as soon as they arrive, even if they do not intend to settle, researchers have said.
A study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation examined the lives of a group of Eastern Europeans who came to the UK before European Union enlargement.

Many who intended to come for just a short visit changed their minds and stayed, the study showed.Immigrants from the so-called A8 nations - Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta - won the right to live, work and remain permanently in the UK after EU enlargement on May 1, 2004.
Researchers from Oxford and Sussex Universities questioned 333 immigrants from Ukraine and Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Lithuania a month before enlargement.
Most had already been in the country for 18 months. But they were asked to recall whether they had intended to settle in Britain on arriving.
Of the 307 who responded, just 18 (six per cent) said they had.

The migrants were also asked if it was now their intention to settle and 76 (24 per cent) said it was. Eight months later - and after enlargement - the researchers tried to find the same group to find out how many had decided to settle.
They could only trace 109 of them but by then 62 (29 per cent) said that staying was their intention.

Julia Unwin, trust director, said: "The Government should value migrants as more than simply an economic resource, and must continue to place importance on ensuring their integration into wider British society even when their stay is expected to be temporary."

By Stephanie Condron
Last Updated: 2:13am BST 29/05/2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news