Commission chiefs to hold talks with Libya over Gaddafi's demand for €5bn a year to stop Europe turning 'black'

The European Union is keen to strike a pact with Muammar Gaddafi to stem the flow of immigrants across the Mediterranean, officials said today, after the Libyan leader put a price tag of €5bn (£4.1bn) a year on the deal.

"There is great scope to develop cooperation with Libya on migration," said Matthew Newman, a commission spokesman. Other officials said three negotiating sessions were expected by the end of the year between Brussels and Tripoli as well as the staging of a summit of EU and African leaders in Libya in November.

In a highly theatrical visit to Italy this week, Gaddafi warned that Europe would turn "black" unless it was more rigorous in turning back immigrants. Libya is a key transit point for illegal migration from Africa to Europe. The Libyan leader said the bill for sealing the crossing routes would be at least €5bn a year.

While the commission in Brussels said that much could be achieved with Libya "for lesser amounts than that named by Colonel Gaddafi", Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister, supported the Libyan leader. He said European government chiefs would discuss the proposed migration pact at the Tripoli summit.

Frattini went to Libya today to chair a meeting of Mediterranean-rim countries, five from the EU and five in the Maghreb.

"Gaddafi was making an argument all the other Arab leaders in north Africa have made, which is that they don't want to be the gendarmes of Europe," Frattini said. "The issue of the 5 billion [euros] has not been looked at up to now. We will look at it in European meetings and I imagine it will be considered at a European-African summit in Libya in November."

Libya is already taking part in three "pilot projects" set up by the EU and Italy on migration, and Tripoli has received almost €20m in EU funding, the European commission said.

While in Rome Gaddafi advised Europeans to convert to Islam and sought to bolster his claim for billions from Europe by warning that millions of Africans were seeking to migrate to the EU.

"We don't know what will be the reaction of the white and Christian Europeans faced with this influx of starving and ignorant Africans," the Libyan leader told a Rome meeting attended by Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. "We don't know if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions."

Relations between Berlusconi and Gaddafi are strong, based on booming business ties and repression of immigrants. Under a much-criticised deal struck two years ago, Italian border patrols in the Mediterranean are turning back thousands of migrants at sea. They are returned to Libya without being screened for legitimate political asylum cases.

"Europe needs to finally get a migration policy, giving plenty of funds to the migrants' countries of origin and helping transit countries facing a huge burden," Frattini said.

The Rome-Tripoli accord has decreased the numbers of illegal migrants coming into the EU. According to one set of EU figures, the number of illegal immigrants last year fell by more than three quarters to 7,300.

But a confidential internal security report from EU police and border agencies, leaked to the Statewatch whistleblower this week, said 900,000 illegal immigrants were entering the EU every year.

"The risk of illegal migration by north, east and west African nationals to the EU remains high," said the report. "Libya remains a focal point despite recent success in disrupting entry into the EU by this route."

The young want a means to live full and independent lives. But such jobs are increasingly hard to find

It is appalling, as Gary Younge says, for sections of the media to sell the idea that immigration is responsible for unemployment, "with the specific intent of creating panic, fostering resentment and stoking xenophobia" (Immigrants cause job losses? Like ice-cream brings sharks, 16 August).

But how do we account for rising worklessness among the indigenous population versus the success of migrants in getting jobs? As Younge says: "There simply is no proof that immigrants cause unemployment."

A transformation is taking place in which Britain is becoming an economy of distinct labour markets: full-time jobs with "careers" and pensions; and part-time, minimum-waged, pensionless, casual jobs. When ministers past and present claim credit for creating thousands of jobs and look to the 2 million to be created within the next five years, they refer largely to this part-time and casualised workforce.

Eight million people (27%) work part-time in Britain today: one million of these declare themselves reluctant to do so. The August Labour Force Survey shows that 63% of new jobs created in the last quarter were part-time. By 2015, 30% of all jobs could be part-time.

Younge quotes Sarah Mulley's IPPR report: "Since most migration is economic, people are less likely to come and more likely to leave if jobs are scarce." Casualised jobs appeal to students and to young, mobile economic migrants who want to be wage-earners but not citizens. Older migrants willing to gamble that any job at the bottom will turn into something later will also want this work.

But for the majority of young people, including the 17,000 that we work with every year at Rathbone, getting a "proper" job is their means to living full and independent adult lives. Such jobs are increasingly hard to find, and the OECD says Britain now has the most young people in Europe who have given up altogether on the idea of getting a job.

Casualisation is a disaster for adults too. How many can follow work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith's advice and relocate themselves for most of the jobs on offer today?

Whether it is Gordon Brown proclaiming British jobs for British workers, the red-tops blaming immigrants, or the far right exploiting these vulnerabilities, racism fills the gap between empty political rhetoric about recovery, growth and jobs, and the experiences of millions facing the real insecurities of today's jobs market. Charities like ours are working flat out to bridge the gap between young people and jobs. But bridging young people into work has been a major public policy failure for years. Worklessness is the consequence of structural failure in the labour market.

Beyond apprenticeships and warehousing young people in a bloated further education system, governments since Tony Blair's have had nothing creative or practical to say or do about youth unemployment – which since 1997 has never fallen below 1 million. It must be time for a radical review of the jobs market for the current "lost generation" of youngsters yet to make it into the "big society". Ice-cream may not attract sharks, but mass unemployment definitely attracts racists.

Flights redirected to Baghdad after political objections and local protests

Home Office deportation flights are being prevented from taking failed asylum seekers directly to northern Iraq because of a diplomatic dispute with the Kurdish regional government (KRG).

A ban has in effect been placed on incoming flights from the UK landing forcibly returned Kurds at the regional airport in Irbil. Political objections and local protests have led to the UK Border Agency redirecting the planes to Baghdad.

Another round-up of failed Iraqi asylum seekers has been ordered in the past week. At least 60 people are now being held at Colnbrook detention centre, near Heathrow, awaiting removal by charter flight. Those about to be deported have been given tickets dated 1 or 6 September.

Thousands of Iraqi refugees remain in Britain, many having arrived before the 2003 invasion when Saddam Hussein was persecuting the Kurds.

The Home Office's forced repatriation of asylum seekers denied permission to remain in Britain has been diplomatically fraught. The first flight to Baghdad last year led to airport officials in the Iraqi capital refusing to accept all but a handful of passengers. Most were denied entry and sent back to the UK.

To assuage political sensitivities, Iraqi interior ministry officials are permitted the unusual privilege of interviewing and screening detained asylum seekers in UK detention centres to confirm they will accept each individual.

The UK policy of sending deportees back to, or through, the central provinces of Iraq, which include Baghdad, is in defiance of guidelines issued by the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, which warns that the area remains unsafe due to suicide bombs and attacks by al-Qaida militants.

One Iraqi deported from the UK was killed by a car bomb in Kirkuk in 2007. The continuing violence claimed more than 60 lives following a series of co-ordinated blasts in Iraqi cities during just one day – 25 August – last week.

The KRG, the semi-autonomous administration that runs the Kurdistan region of north-east Iraq, controls its own militia. For many years, it has objected to forcible returns of failed asylum seekers from western European countries, threatening to withdraw diplomatic co-operation.

Many deportation flights from the UK have nonetheless been sent to Iribil; on the first flights deportees were ordered to wear flak jackets for their return to what was deemed a safe country.

An official at the KRG representative office in London said: "The KRG has asked the British government to send only those people who want to go back. It is opposed to forcible deportations."

The last UK deportation flight to Kurdistan was about five months ago. The Home Office now accepts that it will have to send Kurdish Iraqis back via Baghdad unless the KRG agrees to reopen direct flights.

The border agency told the Guardian: "UKBA only ever returns those who both the agency and the courts are satisfied do not need our protection and refuse to leave voluntarily.

"Currently we have agreement with the government of Iraq to return all Iraqi citizens to Baghdad. We make arrangements for those who require onward travel to their home towns, and this includes those travelling to the KR [Kurdish region].

"These arrangements worked well on the recent charter flights to Baghdad and we are confident they will continue to do so."

Political opposition to forcible deportations has been led by the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, which has organised protests both in western European countries and within Kurdistan.

More than 2 million Iraqis fled the sectarian violence which erupted after the 2003 invasion. Most sought sanctuary in neighbouring Arab states but many were attracted by the opportunities of employment in the EU.

Richard Whittel, of the Coalition to Stop Deportations to Iraq, said: "It is inspiring that popular pressure in Kurdistan forced the government there to take a stand against these deportations but disturbing that our government persists with them, pandering to the myth that immigration is to blame for the country's problems."

Among the common complaints raised by opponents of forced removals have been persistent allegations that failed asylum seekers are mistreated by security guards when they are forced on to planes in Britain for flights back to Iraq.

Channel 4's Dispatches says thousands of workers endure sexual, physical and psychological abuse from employers

Thousands of foreign domestic workers are living as slaves in Britain, being abused sexually, physically and psychologically by employers, according to an investigation to be screened tonight.

More than 15,000 migrant workers come to Britain every year to earn money to send back to their families. But according to a Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, many endure conditions that campaigners say amount to modern-day slavery.

Kalayaan, a charity based in west London that helps and advises migrant domestic workers, registers around 350 new workers each year.

About 20% report being physically abused or assaulted, including being burnt with irons, threatened with knives, and having boiling water thrown at them.

"Two-thirds of the domestic workers we see report being psychologically abused," said Jenny Moss, a community advocate for the charity. "That means they've been threatened and humiliated, shouted at constantly and called dog, donkey, stupid, illiterate."

A similar proportion say they were not allowed out alone and have never had a day off. Nearly three-quarters say they were paid less than £50 a week.

"The first thing to understand when we're talking about slavery is that we're not using a metaphor," said Aidan McQuade from Anti-Slavery International. "Many of the instances of domestic servitude we find in this country are forced labour – a classification that includes retention of passports and wages, threat of denunciation and restriction of movement and isolation."

Lobby groups and charities say that a large proportion of domestic workers are paid less than £50 a week for working 20-hour days. Others have their wages withheld completely. In some cases, the workers are young people who were trafficked over to the UK as children and forced to endure years of violence and forced labour.

The programme also investigates claims that foreign diplomats are among the worst offenders. Their workers, unlike those brought in on a domestic worker visa, cannot change their employer and face being homeless or being deported if they escape. The Dispatches study says it is also extremely difficult to prosecute diplomats for treating their workers as slaves.

Accurate figures are hard to establish because the abuse happens behind closed doors. But campaigners say that every year, hundreds of domestic workers run away from employees they claim have mistreated them.

Marissa Begonia left three young children in the Philippines when she came to Britain as a domestic worker 16 years ago. Now the head of Justice 4 Domestic Workers, a new campaigning organisation run by and for migrant workers, Begonia says most of their clients are forced to work abroad, without ever seeing their families, because of extreme poverty in their home countries.

"It's a matter of life and death," said Begonia. "You have two choices only: you watch your children die slowly, starving, or you leave them and come to the UK to work to make sure your children survive." The Metropolitan police specialised crime unit specifically targets forced labour, including domestic workers. "We've now got 10 cases of domestic servitude we are investigating," said detective chief superintendent Richard Martin, who heads the unit.

"Some victims are being chained to the kitchen sink, working seven days a week, 20 hours a day, for little or no pay. We have had cases of workers being forced to eat scraps off the table, so some of them are not even fed properly, and are assaulted and abused. We've had cases where women have been raped."

Children are also being bought to the UK to work in conditions of slavery. Christina was trafficked from Nigeria to London when she was just 12 years old. She says the woman in charge of her was of Nigerian origin, but worked as a British civil servant first with the Home Office and then Customs and Excise.

"I got beaten up all the time but I had no choice: I had nowhere to go," said Christina, who worked for the woman for five years, until she escaped in 2005. "She hit me with a frying pan and with a belt, so many, many times. It was horrible. I wanted to die."

From abuse to justice

Patience is a domestic worker from west Africa, whose former boss was a London solicitor. She says that for almost three years she worked 120 hours a week for little money. "I was treated like a slave, not allowed to go out, to make friends … she'd pinch me, slap me. I didn't have anyone to talk to." A neighbour helped Patience escape, but then, she says, the police did not believe her. She finally won her case at an employment tribunal and took action against the police, who reopened the investigation. The solicitor was convicted of assault.

Government urged to put need before nationality

Plans to allow councils to give local people priority over immigrants waiting for social housing could lead to the "unjust and inhumane" treatment of vulnerable people, charities warned today.

The government plans to give councils the power to set their own housing allocation policies. This would allow them to give preference to people with strong connections to the local area.

Grant Shapps, the housing minister, said need would remain a criterion, but councils and housing associations could also take into account "the desire of local people" in framing allocation policies. "It causes a great deal of concern and is very problematic for social cohesion when people find they aren't provided with any preference when they are actually in the area they have lived in for a very long time," he told the Sunday Times.

But the Refugee Council said the plans – part of the decentralisation and localism bill in parliament later this year – could hurt some of society's neediest.

Donna Covey, its chief executive, said: "Councils must ensure that those in greatest need of housing are given priority, so it would be unjust and inhumane to force refugees to the end of the queue simply because they were not born in the UK. That would be no way to treat people who have suffered unimaginable horrors in their own countries and have subsequently been offered protection here.

"We're pleased the government is looking to improve the asylum system, so as part of that they must ensure people who have been granted asylum here are given the same opportunities as other people living in the UK, as is their right."

The charity Shelter also urged the government to prioritise need over nationality. "Social housing is a scarce resource and it is vital that priority is given to those who need it most," said a spokeswoman.

Research shows that new migrants already do not get priority over UK-born residents when housing is allocated.

A report from the Equality and Human Rights Commission last year found that only 2% of all social housing residents are people who have moved to Britain in the last five years and that nine out of 10 all people in such housing were UK-born. Four million people, and one in five households, in England live in social housing.

Many town halls would like more power to set their own housing policies. Edward Lister, the Tory leader of Wandsworth council, in south London, said: "If the housing allocation rules are going to be changed, we would welcome that. We want to give a measure of priority to local residents. It builds stability in the community and keeps families together."

The discretionary powers would allow councils to introduce a points system that rewarded people who have worked hard and clocked-up national insurance contributions.

But the shadow housing minister, John Healey, dismissed Shapp's plans as "complete spin". He said councils already had discretionary powers, granted by the Labour administration at the end of last year, and that the government was diverting attention away from the real issue of the shortage of housing stock.

"This year the government has already cut half a billion pounds of investment we had set aside to build new public housing," he said.

"I think what's going on here is that the housing minister is giving the impression of taking action while at the same time avoiding what is the biggest need in housing: the need for more homes."

Signs of Tory-Lib Dem split as net migration jumps 20%

Tensions over immigration within the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition resurfaced today, when Vincent Cable urged his colleagues not to introduce new border controls that would harm economic growth.

The business secretary spoke out after new figures showed an unexpected 20% rise in net immigration to Britain: 196,000 people arrived in 2009, up from 163,000 the year before.

The government plans a cap on immigration, but as a European Union member it would only be able to cap immigration from outside the EU. But Cable pointed out that the rise in immigration announced yesterday was not caused by an increase in work permits issued to non-EU citizens, but by a fall in the number of people leaving the UK to live overseas.

Cable told the Financial Times: "It's very clear from the figures that the increase in recorded immigration has nothing to do with the number of non-EU work permits issued; they actually declined.

"I've full confidence that my colleagues understand the need for immigration control measures that support business recovery and economic growth."

Cable's comments follow a statement he made last month on a trip to India, when he said: "It's no great secret that in my department and me personally, we want to see an open economy, and as liberal an immigration policy as it's possible to have."

David Cameron made introducing an annual cap on immigration a key issue during this year's election campaign, although he is yet to explain how it would work and what the exact level would be, beyond saying it must be brought under 100,000. The coalition agreement with the Lib Dems says only: "We have agreed that there should be an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work. We will consider jointly the mechanism for implementing the limit." So far the government has imposed a cap on work visas for highly-skilled non-EU immigrants, setting this at 24,100 between June 2010 and April 2011, down 1,300 from last year. Under the terms of membership of the EU, the UK could not cap EU immigration.

Employers warned yesterday that the abrupt introduction of a "radical cap" on immigration from next year would lead to major skills shortage in the UK.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development issued the warning after the release of the new figures showing an increase in net migration to Britain, a jump fuelled mostly by 60% fewer Britons leaving the country to live abroad – down from 90,000 to 36,000 – and by a 35% rise in overseas students coming to Britain.

At the same time, the actual number of people coming to work in Britain has continued to decline: there was a fall of 14% recorded in the 12 months to June 2010, which included a 30% fall in new national insurance registrations by Poles and other eastern Europeans.

Britain has become much less attractive to immigrants as a result of the recession and the weakened pound, the Institute of Public Policy Research said.

"The increase in net immigration shown in today's statistics is bad news for the government, given its aim of reducing net immigration to 'tens of thousands' rather than hundreds of thousands," said a briefing from the thinktank yesterday. "With net immigration now rising again, after a period of substantial decline, this objective looks like it is becoming harder to reach."

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said the sharp fall in the number of work-related visas – down by 14% to 161,050 in the year to June 2010 – showed the points-based system introduced by Labour was robust and working.

"The reality for employers is that training workers to plug the UK skills gap is a lengthy task," said Gerwyn Davies of the CIPD. "The abrupt introduction of a radical cap would therefore leave many employers with a bigger skills problem and tempt employers with global operations to offshore jobs, where they can find the skills."

Damian Green, the immigration minister, said the unexpected rise in net migration – the numbers coming to live in the UK minus those leaving – meant the government would now need to re-examine routes outside the points-based system.

"What these figures tell me is that we also need to look at the other routes by which people come into this country, maybe for education, for family reunion reasons and also, in particular, routes that lead to permanent settlement," said Green. "Because hidden in these figures are two very big increases: one, of the number of students coming in, and the other, of the numbers of people settling here and gaining citizenship here."

Although a net migration figure of 196,000 for 2009 is higher than the previous year, it is still well below the peaks of about 220,000 seen in 2005 and 2007 when the flow of migrants from the new EU states – Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltics – was at its highest.

The official immigration statistics also show a continuing decline in the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain. Only 4,365 arrived between April and June this year – a 29% fall compared with the same period in 2009. The Home Office said two-thirds of the decline was because of a drop in applications from Zimbabwe.

Both the Refugee Council and Refugee Action highlighted figures showing that almost a third of asylum appeals were being allowed and argued this demonstrated that a significant number of asylum claims were being wrongly refused. The welfare groups said that the figure rose to 50% in cases involving people from Somalia, which showed the danger of the government cutting legal aid for asylum appeals.

Fewer foreigners are actually coming to the UK to work, say opponents of an immigration cap

The abrupt introduction of a "radical cap" on immigration from next year will lead to major UK skills problems, employers warned today.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development issued the warning after new figures showed an unexpected 20% rise in net migration to Britain: 196,000 people arrived in 2009, up from 163,000 the year before.

The jump was fuelled mostly by 60% fewer Britons leaving the country to live abroad – down from 90,000 to 36,000 – and by a 35% rise in overseas students coming to Britain.

At the same time, the actual number of people coming to work in Britain has continued to decline: there was a fall of 14% recorded in the 12 months to June 2010, which included a 30% fall in new national insurance registrations by Poles and other eastern Europeans.

Britain has become much less attractive to migrants as a result of the recession and the weakened pound, the Institute of Public Policy Research said.

"The increase in net immigration shown in today's statistics is bad news for the government, given its aim of reducing net immigration to 'tens of thousands' rather than hundreds of thousands," said a briefing from the institute yesterday. "With net immigration now rising again, after a period of substantial decline, this objective looks like it is becoming harder to reach."

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said the sharp fall in the number of work-related visas – down by 14% to 161,050 in the year to June 2010 – showed the points-based system was robust and working.

"The reality for employers is that training workers to plug the UK skills gap is a lengthy task," said the institute's Gerwyn Davies. "The abrupt introduction of a radical cap would therefore leave many employers with a bigger skills problem and tempt employers with global operations to offshore jobs, where they can find the skills."

Damian Green, the immigration minister, said the unexpected rise in net migration – the numbers coming to live in the UK minus those leaving – meant the government would now need to re-examine routes outside the points-based system.

"What these figures tell me is that we also need to look at the other routes by which people come into this country, maybe for education, for family reunion reasons and also, in particular, routes that lead to permanent settlement," said Green. "Because hidden in these figures are two very big increases: one, of the number of students coming in, and the other, of the numbers of people settling here and gaining citizenship here."

The coalition has already imposed a temporary cap on the number of skilled workers coming to Britain from outside the EU and is now debating the introduction of a permanent limit from January. The government has pledged to bring net migration down below 100,000 before the next general election.

Although a net migration figure of 196,000 for 2009 is higher than the previous year, it is still well below the peaks of about 220,000 seen in 2005 and 2007 when the flow of migrants from the new EU states – Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltics – was at its highest.

The official immigration statistics also show a continuing decline in the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain. Only 4,365 arrived between April and June this year – a 29% fall compared with the same period in 2009. The Home Office said two-thirds of the decline was because of a drop in applications from Zimbabwe.

Both the Refugee Council and Refugee Action highlighted figures showing that almost a third of asylum appeals were being allowed and argued this demonstrated that a significant number of asylum claims were being wrongly refused. The welfare groups said that the figure rose to 50% in cases involving people from Somalia, which showed the danger of the government cutting legal aid for asylum appeals.

Lack of planning has given us urban squalor, where, with a bit of regulation, dense populations could live in comfort

England is now the second most crowded country in the European Union, after Malta. It has, for the first time, inched past the Netherlands, with 402.1 people per square kilometre, compared with the Dutch 398.5. This statistic coincides with a rise in net migration, partly caused by a decline in outward emigration. Some have already been quick to link the two.

Overcrowding, class, immigration and race have long been linked in certain quarters. From the apocalyptic 18th century predictions of Malthus through the cannibal megalopolis of the film Soylent Green to the "demographic threat" in Israel-Palestine, the prospect of a teeming mass of inferior folk causing mayhem and starvation, or simply outnumbering "us", has been a persistent obsession.

But if the EU report is given more than a cursory glance, it is easily seen that the apparently alarming statistic is actually about population density, not immigration, "over" crowding or "over" population – nor even the population density of the UK. England might have a density of 402.1 per square km, but the UK as a whole is well below the Netherlands and Belgium at 256.3, roughly the same level as Germany. Scotland and Wales are far below either, with Scotland's level of 70.9 placing it lower than Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania. So what this is really about is concentration of population in very particular places and underpopulation elsewhere. A response to that doesn't necessitate draconian immigration caps, but rather something terribly unfashionable – town planning.

Densely populated areas are not necessarily slums. Among the densest places in the UK are Mayfair and Pimlico, or the west ends of Glasgow and Edinburgh. With their expensive stucco squares and sandstone tenements, these places are by no means dystopian. Given their extreme desirability, an extremely high population density is clearly not so alarming.

Architects and planners, disenfranchised by the suburban non-plan of Thatcherism, spent the 80s and 90s agitating for tightly packed housing, the use of urban brownfield sites, compact cities, piazzas and public transport – all attempts to manage and make urban density comfortable. Under New Labour, this generation – architects like Richard Rogers, planners like Ricky Burdett – had the chance to implement these ideas.

You can see the results all over the UK, wherever "mixed use" blocks of flats fill former industrial land, in the skylines of Leeds and Manchester, in east London. Usually, the results entailed four- to 12-storey flats, built around squares, with mooted shops and facilities in the ground floor. An inner-city housing boom started to match its suburban precursor.

In reality, the shops and nurseries became empty units or estate agents, the squares were inept and windswept, and speculative developers crammed as many tiny flats into their plots as possible. In Stratford you can see the grimmest results – aesthetically stunted, architecturally bumptious towers crowding round wasteland. Does this invalidate the idea? Should we, as some Tories suggest in their screeds against the ludicrous myth of "garden grabbing", celebrate the end of the attempted "urban renaissance" and return to the pseudo-rural suburban sprawl of the 80s, and the depopulation and desuetude of our cities?

Or rather, should we acknowledge that the problem with New Labour, and Rogers and Burdett was that they didn't plan enough? Rather than being held to strict standards, developers were given carte blanche; instead of council housing easing the overcrowding of the poor, a percentage of allegedly affordable housing was sold in each block of terracotta-clad yuppiedromes. Meanness – "value engineering" as it is euphemistically known – was what made the New Labour landscape so grim, not height, planning or modernity, and certainly not overcrowding.

Rise fuelled by growing number of overseas students, data from Office for National Statistics reveals

Net migration to Britain rose by 20% to 196,000 last year, fuelled by a sharp increase in the number of overseas students coming to the UK to study and a 13% fall in the number of people leaving to live abroad.

The net migration figures, published by the Office for National Statistics, reveal that the number of people coming to live in Britain compared with those moving abroad increased by 33,000 from the 2008 total of 163,000.

The increase will make it more difficult for coalition ministers to introduce a permanent cap on immigration that brings net migration numbers down to their stated aim of "tens of thousands a year rather than hundreds of thousands".

"These figures show that Labour's immigration legacy is even worse than anyone feared," the immigration minister, Damian Green said.

"The task facing the new government is to bear down on all routes of immigration. We can now see how necessary our proposed limit on economic immigration is.

"This will be accompanied by action on other routes of immigration and settlement. We will be unveiling these over the coming months."

The annual statistics also show a further fall in the number of asylum seekers coming to Britain – down from 25,930 in 2008 to 24,485.

The number of people removed voluntarily or forcibly deported also fell, down 1% compared with 2008.

The ONS figures highlight one legacy from the surge of immigration in the mid-2000s, with the proportion of new babies born to mothers born outside the UK reaching a record high of 24.7%.

Pakistan, Poland and India top the list for mothers countries' of origin. Newham, in east London, has the highest proportion of such births – more than 75%.

The quarterly immigration and asylum figures for the 12 months to June show sharp falls in the number people coming to work in Britain under the points-based immigration system.

The number of tier one and tier two highly-skilled and skilled visas issued fell from 107,125 to 94,550 during the period. The number of temporary employment visas fell by 17% to 66,495.

At the same time, the number of Poles and other eastern Europeans coming to work in Britain between April and June this year stood at 28,645 – about the same level as last year but half the number of arrivals in 2008.

But while the number of people coming to work in Britain has continued to fall amid the economic downturn, the rise in the number of overseas students in 2009 has continued into the first six months of 2010.

The data shows that 362,015 tier four student visas under the points-based system were issued in the 12 months to June 2010 – a rise of 35% on the previous year.

A decline in the number of Britons going to live abroad for 12 months or more has moderated the increase in the net migration figure.

The ONS estimates that the number of people going to live overseas fell from a peak of 427,000 in 2008 to 371,000 in 2009.

Separate Home Office figures show that the decline in new asylum applications to Britain has also continued this year, with a 29% fall between April and June compared with the same period in 2009.

More than two-thirds of this was accounted for by a decline in applications from Zimbabwe.

A total of 6,100 failed asylum seekers and illegal entrants were held in immigration detention centres last year, including 115 children under the age of 18.

The latest snapshot figures show that only five children were being held in detention under immigration powers on 30 June.

The coalition has pledged to end the detention of children for immigration purposes.

Poland's new breed of economic migrants are far removed from the cultural traditions of the postwar political migrants

Earlier this month, thousands of people took part in a midnight rally outside the presidential palace in Poland's capital, Warsaw, demanding the removal of a wooden cross honouring the victims of last April's plane crash, which killed the Polish president Lech Kaczyński. The "cross war" highlights a deep division in Polish society.

On one level it has turned into a political battle between the liberal pro-market Civic Platform, and its main rival, the conservative pro-church Law and Justice party, led by Jarosław Kaczyński. The latter ran in the presidential election hoping to replace his twin brother, but lost to Civic Platform's Bronisław Komorowski. The issue has also become a focal point of tensions over the role of religion in society, as young secularist Poles who organised the latest demonstration using Facebook came face to face with elderly Catholic "cross defenders".

But the intergenerational divide is not confined to Poland. In Britain, too, the same rigid boundary divides Polish "political" (post-WWII) and "economic" (mostly post-EU accession) migrants. Sociologist Michał Garapich begins one of his papers with a quote from an active member of the London Citizens organisation who, when asked by a Polish TV correspondent about her relationship with the older Polonia (Polish diaspora) organisations based in the UK said: "I am a Pole living in London, but I don't identify with Polonia."

Marek Kazmierski, the editor of an independent London print-house Off_press, who emigrated with his family from communist Poland at the age of 12, wrote in an article:

"I've spent the last year working with Polish people in the UK on various integration and cultural projects. Time and time again, I've been astounded by the amount of grief we seem capable of inflicting on one another. Fights in the press. Within community groups. Between cultural centres. Not in Poland. Here, in this land of plenty."

The main cause of the division seems to be the motivation for migration. According to another sociologist, George Kolankiewicz, diaspora Poles have trouble overcoming the differences between those who emigrated for political reasons and those who moved to find jobs. The former, he says, are "unwilling to yield on their defining feature and the latter [are] unable to be anything other than economic migrants".

However, Garapich also believes the two social worlds of the "Odyssean refugees" and the newcomers reflect the two faces of Polish society, which is deeply divided not only by the generation gap, but by class and cultural differences. The newer migrants are market-orientated and driven by individualism, consumerism and success. "There is little space for the 'preservation' of a particular set of Polish émigré traditions and political ideas that shaped the history of Polish diaspora," he writes.

Postwar Polish migrants have regularly invoked the nation at home, in communal gatherings, school lessons and church services. But many young Poles who settled in the UK after 2004 spend their Christmases in hot countries instead of decorating the tree.

The findings of Polarity UK's opinion poll conducted among post-accession migrants last year show that 41% of respondents don't go to church at all and 37% go less often than they used to in Poland. Young Poles communicate with each other using English or "Ponglish" – a linguistic hybrid created by the introduction of English words into their speech – and only few are sending their children to Saturday schools where they could learn the Polish language, literature and history. What's more, newcomers are not part of any ethnic organisation and tend to have an opportunistic attitude towards their fellow countrymen.

"Poles apart" has become more than just a catchy phrase – it's now a sad truth both in Britain and in Poland. Being a Catholic Facebook user and a young migrant who nevertheless tries to maintain the Polish traditions that are so close to the hearts of "old" emigrants, I'm stuck between the two sides. I hope that one day Poles will realise that their war is a lost cause. The generational, class and cultural divisions will exist whether we like it or not.

Populist politicians have seized on the Sun Sea Tamil refugees to ramp up anti-immigrant rhetoric, reneging on human rights

Earlier this month, a boat carrying 492 Tamils claiming to be refugees from Sri Lanka's recently ended 26-year civil war arrived in Canada on the MV Sun Sea, having set sail two and half months earlier. Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is now processing the asylum claims of those on board.

While the 492 refugee claimants represent only around 2% of Canada's annual refugee intake, the MV Sun Sea has been taken on as a symbol of the spectre of a refugee influx, notably by the conservative National Post newspaper and Stephen Harper's Conservative government. A former chair of the IRB has disputed the public safety minister's claim that smugglers and terrorists were on board the ship.

Before each MV Sun Sea asylum case has had a chance to be reviewed, the idea that the ship represents a "public safety" problem and the tip of a "refugee influx" has come to dominate discussion of the MV Sun Sea, which risks influencing the cases of the asylum seekers, as well as effecting changes in Canadian law.

Although a 1985 supreme court ruling guarantees constitutional charter rights to refugee claimants in Canada, the government has indicated that it is reviewing relevant legislation in order to deter further ships. The prime minister, Stephen Harper, has argued that the Conservative government "will not hesitate to strengthen the laws if we have to".

With this heightened focus on the spectre of an asylum seeker influx, Canada shows signs of heading the way of Australia, which briefly stopped accepting refugees from Sri Lanka this year, on the argument that the situation in the country has improved sufficiently since the end of the conflict in 2009 – although Australia's own human rights commission expressed concern at the decision, which has since been revoked. As Australia went to the polls last week, the asylum debate between the two main parties came down to an argument about which island to detain them on, and the UN high commissioner for refugees has expressed concern that the number of Afghan refugees accepted by Australia has declined since last year. It's alarming that a similar tone has begun to surface in Canada over the last few weeks, with calls to "turn back" the ships before they reach Canadian waters.

Immigration lawyers have pointed out that the boats carrying asylum seekers can't be turned back in international waters, as their right to life entails their refugee status must be determined through a fair trial, rather than on the high seas before it can be judged whether they have a valid fear of persecution. The MV Sun Sea has captured the public imagination, but it presents a distorted view of the process of Canada's refugee system: contrary to the perception of a "refugee influx", in which anyone who comes to Canada by boat gets a free pass, Canada last year cut its refugee targets for 2010, and more and more failed claimants are being sent back. And while it has been argued that many on board the ships are not genuine asylum seekers, of 76 Sri Lankan Tamils who arrived in Canada by boat last October, none were declared ineligible to make a claim for asylum.

Paul Dewar, an opposition MP for the New Democratic party, has argued that the government should concentrate on helping Sri Lanka rebuild after its devastating civil war, rather than focusing on turning Tamils away from Canada. At the very least, Canada should make sure Australia's poisonous discourse on refugees does not reach its shores.

Petrichor wants to know the privacy rights of those filmed for documentaries that follow the police and UK Border Agency

Petrichor writes:

"I'd like to know about the legal issues surrounding privacy and the filming and broadcasting of all those "cops"-style documentaries that follow the police or the border agency people etc around. Often on these programs the individual being accosted by the authorities is less than happy to be filmed. To be honest I'm not surprised as to have cameras shoved in your face at moments like these seems to me to be provocative to say the least (even if the individual in question is acting like a complete idiot). So my question is, what 'privacy' rights do you have with regards to being filmed in these kind of situations? What laws do the camera crews have to abide by?"

The legal and human issues raised by camera crews filming alongside police officers trying to stop and question individuals in public places was addressed by my colleague Corinna in December 2009 and that piece should answer a lot of Petrichor's questions.

However, Petrichor has raised a new point, which is something of real concern to many people: the apparent presence of film crews inside immigration detention centres and interview rooms where people are being interviewed by UK Border Agency (UKBA) staff.

I have come across some of these programmes while channel surfing. There is a particular programme, put out regularly on one very well-known private television network, that follows the activities of UKBA staff as they attend people at home to arrest them on suspicion of immigration offences, film them during immigration interviews, film them in their immigration detention centres and follow them as they are put on the plane. In the vast majority of cases, it seems, the face of the person being interviewed or arrested is not pixellated.

I have seen people being filmed as UKBA staff force their way into their flat, while the person is still in their underwear. The camera zooms in on the subject's face as he is being asked questions by the immigration officer. Another film follows a UKBA crew as they go to a detention centre to pick up a group of young men, who are then taken to the airport to be deported. There are what are clearly first interviews with people who are being closely questioned about their families, their work plans and their domestic arrangements. Allegations are put to people that seem to be untested and unproven, which are then broadcast.

The culture of disbelief at UKBA is palpable in the faces of many of the UKBA staff asking questions of the detainees. There is a real worry, as my colleague mentioned in her article, that staff may be playing up to the cameras. At no point in any of the films I have seen has the subject been asked to give his or her consent to being filmed. Even if consent had been technically given, in such a stressful situation, we have concerns about how meaningful that consent could be.

I was also shocked to read of a report from May 2008 in the press that the Home Office had at least in part funded the setting up of this series. It was reported that the former government had made a so-called "advertiser-funded" deal with the TV company concerned, which would help the company meet the costs of developing and making the programme. The decision by the then government to contribute to the setting up of such a series was very heavily criticised as blatant propaganda, something which, if true, we would second.

So what is the position, legally? The first thing to acknowledge is that if an individual consents to having his/her face and personal details broadcast as part of the film, then of course it can go ahead. The production company may have obtained the consent of the subjects of the film, after filming them but before broadcasting. It would be interesting to hear from the production company concerned about how they deal with the matter of consent. We do wonder why someone would agree to give their consent to have their personal details and pictures broadcast on national television in a very unsympathetic way, when they would appear to have no incentive at all to do so. The consequences of giving consent are an enormous invasion of privacy and the almost inevitable prejudicing of any future application to come to the UK. Are the production company paying the subjects for their consent? If so, would this be ethical?

If consent is not given by the subject of the film, then the person clearly has a reasonable expectation of privacy, which is breached by the filming of them in a private place and in such stressful circumstances. The subject has a right to privacy under article 8 Human Rights Act, which is engaged by filming them and broadcasting that film. The fact that the broadcaster/TV company is not a public authority does not mean that it is not bound to respect article 8, as the case of Campbell v MGN Limited made very clear – the law of confidence in this country has effectively incorporated the provisions of article 8 so that "the values embodied in articles 8 and 10 are as much applicable in disputes between individuals or between an individual and a non-governmental body such as a newspaper as they are in disputes between individuals and a public authority". If there was no consent and the broadcast went ahead in such circumstances, we would say that the production company or broadcaster might well be liable under the law of confidence and the UKBA/Home Office under the Human Rights Act.

UKBA might argue that the interference with the person's article 8 privacy rights was justified. Article 8 states that it is lawful to interfere with a person's privacy where the interference is "in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others." We do not think that a court would be likely to find that this sort of interference was justified. The broadcasting of these interviews and deportations is not about public education – it is about entertainment.

The TV production company/broadcaster has a conflicting right: the right to freedom of expression (article 10 Human Rights Act). Given that the subject pertains to a matter of concern to the public (illegal immigration), considerable weight will need to be given to this right. Article 10 recognises the importance of freedom of expression, but it also recognises that there are occasions when protection of the rights of others may make it necessary for freedom of expression to give way. We would say that where the programme contains highly confidential personal information about easily identifiable individuals, then this should carry very serious weight indeed. These programmes have been criticised as being inflammatory, unhelpful and preying on people's worst fears. Certainly they do not encourage the public to think about immigration in a balanced or informed way. We do not think the programme makers (or the Home Office, which apparently supports or has supported them) have got the balance right.

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The government is wrong to put a limit on skilled workers coming to the UK. We need them

The government's proposal to cap highly skilled immigration from outside the EU is taking flak from business leaders. Employers are arguing that the limit will prevent them hiring the staff they need to deliver the growth that the government is banking on to put Britain back on an even keel. According to today's report from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and KPMG, around one in six companies intends to recruit migrant workers in the next several months. There will be serious consequences if they cannot, especially given that almost one in 10 private sector firms is already planning to relocate jobs to India, China and eastern Europe in the next year.

In truth, the cap will restrict only the highly skilled migrants who are most obviously economically valuable. So this is hardly going to assuage public concern about high immigration.

It was public unease, expressed through opinion polls over many years, that led the Conservatives to seize on the cap as a flagship policy for the general election. Labour's early record on immigration, when numbers were increasing fast, meant the party would get no credit later for putting in place one of the most robust and effective immigration systems in the world, with the points-based system as its centrepiece. The cap was much simpler, a seemingly "tough" policy with real voter appeal. But it has left the new government in a very difficult position: it can please immigration sceptics or economic liberals, but not both. At worst, it will please neither. Quite simply, the immigration cap is a bad policy.

Of course, it is legitimate for the government to take a view on the level of immigration that the UK can manage. People will disagree on whether the objective of "net immigration in the tens, rather than hundreds of thousands" is the right one, but it seems reasonable enough, in principle, for the government to have such an objective. After all, immigration has been very high in the last decade, although it is now falling.

The decrease is probably largely a result of the economic downturn, as well as tighter rules in recent years. Lower net immigration helps to take some of the heat out of a public and political debate that has become polarised and sometimes vicious, stigmatising immigrants and giving succour to the far right.

There are plenty of myths, but little hard evidence that recent immigration has caused significant problems to the UK as a whole. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that immigration has, on balance, brought significant economic and social benefits.

However, where immigration has had negative local impacts, for example by increasing pressure on public services, the consequences have too often been felt by the poorer and more deprived communities. But the government is at risk of confusing symptoms with causes. Reducing immigration will not provide people with secure and well-paid jobs or with affordable housing.

We need to see migration as part of a wider picture of economic change. In an era of globalisation, migration has been an important part of the UK's economic model. Britain has been happy to see its best companies sold to foreign owners; it can hardly complain when the new proprietors want to bring in some of their own staff.

For many organisations, having international staff is a benefit rather than a reflection of skills shortages. The multinational company bringing a senior executive from its New York office to its HQ in London, the ballet company hiring the newest talent from Cuba, or the academic department recruiting great minds reflect the fact that in many fields the UK has become a global centre of excellence.

We should not forget the contribution that waves of immigrants have made. The commitment of the Ugandan Asians is still apparent across Britain. The US has consistently shown what smart and humane immigration policies can offer in return, economically and socially.

In their search for foreign staff, employers may be responding to a skills shortages that reflects underinvestment in education and training. In today's study, 42% of the employers believe literacy skills of British graduates have fallen in the past five years against only 6% who believe they have gone up. We should be worried if UK employers are having to look overseas to find the skilled staff they need.

The UK is consistently failing to train enough engineers and scientists, for example. In other areas, recruitment difficulties seem more likely to reflect low wages and poor terms and conditions than skills shortages. The fact that there is a shortage of senior care workers tells us more about how we undervalue those essential staff than about the ability of British people to do these jobs.

The challenge for government is not to come up with ever more inventive ways of stopping skilled foreign workers coming to the UK, but to address the underlying reasons that mean we need them. Of course, in such fiscally straitened times, this may be easier said than done if the answers are higher wages in the public sector and more investment in education.

The suspicion that some employers are resorting to recruiting immigrant labour to avoid the costs of training British staff, or actively using migrant labour as a way to keep wages down, should be focusing the government's attention on employment regulation and employers' obligations to their staff and the wider community. Public concern about immigration would be better addressed by rigorous enforcement of minimum-wage legislation than by caps or limits on skilled migration. Where employers are failing to provide apprenticeships or training for staff, the government needs to encourage them to take responsibility for the training their future workforce. Restricting their access to foreign staff might induce them to do this, but it seems a curiously roundabout way of tackling the problem.

With the introduction of the cap the government is showing an uncharacteristic enthusiasm for intervening in the workings of the free market and is picking a fight with business in the process. The outcome would be better if some of that enthusiasm were directed at the root causes of economic insecurity. And if that requires picking a different fight with business, at least the immigration cap has provided the government with some practice.

One in 10 employers is planning to export jobs overseas as UK skills base goes into decline

Employers' groups are calling on the government to rethink its immigration cap as figures today reveal that almost one in 10 private sector companies plan to relocate jobs abroad in the next year.

Companies are looking to export call-centre, IT and finance jobs, according to a study by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the accounting giant KPMG. Two-thirds of those putting work offshore intend to take jobs to India, a third to China and three out of 10 to eastern Europe. The CIPD warns that more jobs are being sent offshore, and that an immigration cap, imposed too quickly, could have a "devastating" impact on the economy.

Today's research suggests that fears of a dramatic decline in the skills of British graduates and school-leavers are driving employers to look abroad.

Of those questioned, 42% felt the literacy skills of British graduates had fallen over the past five years, compared with just 6% who said they had improved. For numeracy the corresponding figures were 35% and 5%, and for communication and interpersonal skills 34% and 19%. There was a similar pattern when it came to British school-leavers.

Many firms are also looking to recruit from abroad, with one in six saying they will bring in migrant workers in the third quarter of this year.

Gerwyn Davies, public policy adviser at CIPD and author of the report, said the government faced a "complex juggling act". "The proposed introduction of a migration cap comes at a time when many employers are still struggling to fill skilled vacancies despite the high unemployment rate," he added. "The training of local or British workers to fill skilled jobs currently occupied by migrant workers will not happen overnight."

He argued that the current points-based system for immigration, which stops low-skilled workers coming to Britain, is working, and warned that a radical cap imposed too quickly could "choke off" the economic recovery. "It could potentially cut off a labour supply and impede growth in UK companies, which will be devastating given that the government's hopes for reducing unemployment hinge solely on the private sector growing jobs," added Davies.

The cap is a Tory policy announced before the election after the party's MPs said immigration was being raised repeatedly on the doorstep. David Cameron said he wanted net immigration to fall from its current position (163,000 in 2008) to the "tens of thousands".

But the policy is causing controversy, not least with the Conservatives' coalition partners.

During a recent trip to India, Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, admitted there was "debate" about the policy in the cabinet. Privately, he is said to think it is a "crazy" idea.

Employers say they want to have access to the best workers. "Companies want to hire local people, but they often have trouble finding local residents with the basic skills, drive and attitude needed to help the business succeed," said Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce. He added that the "unintended consequences" of the cap could be widespread.

John Randall, the managing director of Kanes Foods based in the west Midlands, said he had employed migrants first from South Africa and later eastern Europe. He said he had always been impressed by the "work ethic" of the foreign employees.

Critics of the cap say it does not solve the political issue. They say people are nervous about the scale of immigration from both inside and outside Europe. But a limit can only be imposed on non-EU migrants, most of whom are coming for high-skilled jobs.

Sarah Mulley, senior research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research, said that such immigration was a "symptom" of the skills shortage in Britain. "The cap will deal with the symptom but not the cause," she said.

But advocates of the cap disagree. Sir Andrew Green, chair of MigrationWatch UK – a thinktank in favour of reducing immigration sharply – said: "The reality is that for every skilled worker imported, that is a British worker not trained. Employers should stop complaining and start training.

"If we make it easy for employers to take skills off the shelf from abroad they have no incentive to train British workers," he added.

Damian Green, the minister for immigration, said the government planned to take net migration down to the levels of the 1990s and said the limit on economic migrants from outside Europe was one measure to help achieve it.

"Businesses are going to have to reduce their reliance on migrant workers as this has done nothing to help the millions of unemployed," he added. The limit will be put in place next year.

Republicans are running hard on the issue, but the Democrats' defensiveness may cost them dear with vital Latino voters

Can the GOP win back the US Senate this November? Even three months ago, most political observers considered that a mathematical near-impossibility. Now, with Republicans all but certain to capture 44 seats, and another eight seats considered "toss-ups", it's not just a GOP fantasy.

In the latest state polls, Republican candidates are leading Democratic candidates, or running neck-and-neck with them, in six of the eight toss-up contests. In the other two, they trail by only a slight margin.

In California, three-term Democrat Barbara Boxer recently lost her lead to Carly Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard CEO. And in Nevada, Tea Party favourite Sharron Angle has pulled slightly ahead of Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, a four-term incumbent Democrat. With 80 days left till the election, and a substantial money advantage, Democrats could still make up ground - but time is running out.

With GOP voters already highly energised, the big question is whether the Democratic base – especially Latinos – can be mobilised to show up at the polls.

In 2008, Latinos went two-to-one for Barack Obama over John McCain – a margin not seen since the Clinton years. The margin was even larger in Nevada and Illinois – two other toss-up states. And in Florida, a majority (56%) of the state's Hispanics backed the Democratic presidential candidate after years of supporting the GOP.

Many Democrats were hoping to consolidate these gains in this year's mid-terms. Instead, polls suggest that Latinos may revert to their 2006 turnout – or worse – when the Democrats captured just 55% of the Latino vote. That could spell diaster for the party – and not just in the Senate, but also in the House, where three dozen congressional races hang in the balance.

The reasons for Latino disenchantment aren't hard to find. Latinos are suffering record levels of joblessness (15%) and polls suggest that conservative and moderate Latino voters are just as disappointed with the Obama administration's handling of key issues (the economy, Afghanistan) as the "average" American voter.

But nothing has disappointed Latinos more than the Obama administration's handling of immigration. Obama's popularity ratings have fallen dramatically since January, when Obama make scant reference to immigration reform in his State of the Union speech. And the Spanish-language media, and key Latino political figures have sharply criticised the president, with some even urging Latino voters to stay home in November.

The White House had hoped that its high-profile lawsuit against Arizona and its attempts to paint Republicans as bigots would rally Latinos. But there's little evidence of this so far. A CNN poll conducted in mid-July, well after the administration filed suit, found only 50% of Latinos leaning toward Democratic candidates – and a whopping 42% leaning toward Republicans.

Boxer's attempt to straddle competing constituencies – whites who support a harsh crackdown on illegal immigration, and Latinos who don't – is a good example of the challenges now facing Democrats seeking re-election. While officially on record supporting comprehensive immigration reform, she's been at pains to show that she can be as tough on enforcement as Fiorina and the GOP.

In June, she and fellow California Democrat Diane Feinstein decided to support a GOP bill that would have vastly escalated the US troop presence along the US-Mexico border, and would have allowed illegal aliens to be jailed for repeat border crossings. The bill, sponsored by Arizona immigration hawks, Senators John McCain and Jon Kyl, gained just 54 votes, six shy of passage. Many California Democrats, including Latinos, were appalled that Boxer – otherwise a strong liberal – agreed to join the GOP's "seal the border" crusade.

In Nevada, where support for immigration reform has traditionally been stronger than elsewhere, Reid has tried desperately to woo the state's Latinos by promising to push for a legalisation programme before the mid-terms. But everytime he moves in that direction – most recently, by promising to force a Senate floor vote on the Dream Act – his nervous Senate colleagues have rebuffed him.

Reid's growing desperation was apparent two weeks ago when he said at a campaign stop that he "couldn't understand why any Latino would support a Republican". The remark was widely criticised in Nevada and nationally. In fact, before the remark, Reid was still leading Angle by two points in the polls. After the remark, he soon fell behind.

Angle, unlike Reid, has refused to give interviews to the Hispanic media, and has made no secret of her support for Arizona's tough new enforcement law. She'd like to see Nevada pass its own version of the law. And polls show that a strong majority of Nevadans would support just such a measure.

Ironically, for all their opposition to illegal immigration, most Americans say they would support a sweeping legalisation programme if aliens were required to have a clean criminal record, pay back taxes, learn English, and stand in line behind legal immigrants who already applied for their visas – a wait of eight years or more.

And the percentage of Latinos who say they would turn out to vote in November nearly doubles, if the Democrats introduce a legalisation bill along these same lines.

But with Obama and the Democrats increasingly on the defensive politically – on immigration and just about everything else – no one expects them to take such a calculated risk. Even if it's the only thing left that might keep the Congress from slipping from their grasp.