[10][11][12] Founded in 2001, the group believes that international migration places undue demand on limited resources and that the current level of immigration is not sustainable.

In an article in The Independent, Deborah Orr writes that the organisation came into being when, "after reading some of his anti-immigration letters in The Times", the then Sir Andrew approached David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, and they subsequently set up MigrationWatch.

[29] The group quickly attracted the attention of Home Secretary David Blunkett, who in 2002 set up a unit intended to monitor and rebut the organisation and sought to control the timing of statistical releases to avoid pressure from it.

[30] The organisation has an advisory council, which is chaired by Baron Green and whose members include David Coleman, Caroline Cox and Alp Mehmet, former ambassador to Iceland.

[31] MigrationWatch's website contains a range of briefing papers to support the organisation's perspective on the statistical, legal, economic and historical aspects of migration, and on topics such as the European Union, housing, health and social cohesion, as they relate to immigration.

[39] MigrationWatch argues that the growth of the population of the United Kingdom through international migration is a key "factor driving problems around pressure on school places, the NHS, housing and the transport infrastructure".

[49] In July 2010, MigrationWatch highlighted what it saw as the potential consequences of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom's unanimous ruling in favour of two homosexual asylum seekers from Iran and Cameroon, allowing them to stay in the UK.

[54] MigrationWatch has argued that, while limited skilled migration (in both directions) is a natural and beneficial feature of an open economy,[55] very large scale immigration is of little benefit to the indigenous population.

[58] Will Somerville and Madeleine Sumption of the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute state in an Equality and Human Rights Commission report that: "Few serious international or UK economists would agree with this conclusion".

[60] MigrationWatch has criticised sectors that lobby for a permissive immigration policy, accusing them of offering "low paying jobs with poor conditions and little flexibility for workers".

[61] In 2014, the group published a report on population growth in London, in which it said that immigration trends had put "massive pressure on schools and hospitals and especially housing".

The paper argued that the government had "cast the proposed offer of a pathway to citizenship as part and parcel with the UK honouring its 'historical responsibilities'", suggesting that this set a dangerous precedent.

Chris Whitehouse, responding to the MigrationWatch paper in an article for CapX, argued that "the UK's historic duty towards Hong Kong is very different to other former colonies; and the future of Hongkongers is based on China keeping its word, which it is brazenly failing to do".

He argues that "Migrationwatch has changed the administrative practices of the civil service and the policies of the major political parties on asylum seekers, work permit criteria and numerical totals.

[15] Similarly, an article by Dean Godson of the centre-right think tank[76] Policy Exchange published in The Times in June 2006 states: "The dramatic change in the terms of the immigration debate over recent months is largely down to the determination and courage of a single individual – Sir Andrew Green, the founder and chairman of MigrationWatch UK.

[86] Economist Philippe Legrain has claimed that "MigrationWatch's xenophobic prejudice is causing it to twist the truth" about the impact of immigration on the employment prospects of British people.

[92] In 2007, the Daily Mirror paid damages to Andrew Green after columnist Brian Reade likened him and the group to the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party, which the paper admitted was "untrue".