London: British Prime Minister David Cameron unveiled plans on Tuesday to halve the time during which EU migrants with no realistic job prospects can claim benefits in the UK.
Cameron announced the plans as part of new "Britain first" immigration policies aimed at luring voters away from eurosceptic rivals ahead of a May 2015 general election.
The reforms mean that legal European Union migrants without clear job prospects will lose out-of-work benefits after three months, rather than the current six months.
Cameron also announced tougher measures to crack down on illegal migrants from outside the EU.
"We want an immigration system that puts Britain first," Cameron said at the site of a dawn raid on illegal migrants in Slough, a town west of London with a large Muslim population.
Cameron said the new changes, which will be introduced in January, show "you cannot expect to come to Britain and get something for nothing".
His centre-right Conservatives want to win back voters who flocked to the anti-EU, anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP) in European parliament elections in May.
EU rules mean that Cameron cannot introduce a cap on migrants from the 28-nation bloc, whose numbers rose to 201,000 in the year ending December 2013, up from 158,000 a year earlier.
The Conservatives had promised to reduce net migration to under 100,000 people by 2015 in their 2010 general election manifesto.
But in an article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cameron set out the plan to reduce the amount of time EU migrants can claim unemployment benefits.
The government did not give figures for how many people would be affected, but the Department for Work and Pensions said 121,280 EU nationals were claiming working-age benefits in the UK in February last year, an increase of 56,190 since 2008.
It says the new measures will save the government £500 million (631 million euros, $849 million) over five years.
The opposition centre-left Labour party said Cameron needed to take firmer action, while UKIP said the announcement was "cynical and vacuous".
The EU is set to investigate Cameron`s plans, British newspapers reported.The proposals will also "massively restrict" the automatic advertising of jobs in Britain on a common EU portal when they are listed on the national site, Cameron said.
Recruitment agencies will be banned from advertising jobs in Britain solely to people abroad, instead being required to also advertise in English in Britain.
The government aims to make it easier to identify illegal immigrants and deport people, Cameron said.
"We will make it harder for you to have a home, to get a car, to get a job, to get a bank account and when we find you -- and we will find you -- we`ll make sure you are sent back to the country you came from," he said at the immigration raid site, which is just miles from the elite Eton College boys-only boarding school that Cameron attended.
From November landlords will be legally required to check the immigration status of tenants. New rules to prevent illegal immigrants opening bank accounts will be introduced in December, the prime minister said.
The government has begun revoking driving licenses that belong to illegal immigrants, withdrawing 3,150 so far, he added.
Education colleges will be under increased pressure to filter out students who may be refused visas, as they will lose their licenses if 10 percent of those they accept are refused permits, Cameron said.
Home Secretary Theresa May, the interior minister, said that the tough new measures will "make Britain a less attractive place for those who come here for the wrong reasons."
Labour has a six-point lead over the Conservatives, with 33 percent support compared to 27 percent, while UKIP has 17 percent of the vote, a ComRes poll showed on Tuesday.
Cameron has promised a referendum on Britain`s membership of the EU if he is re-elected.
