The Tories have accused Sir Keir Starmer of u-turning on his principles over immigration as campaigns ahead of the General Election intensify.
The Labor Party leader pledged to slash levels of migration to the UK but could not provide a timeline level or target figure.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “Keir Starmer has a track record of supporting high immigration levels and helping foreign criminals stay in Britain because he believes all immigration laws are racist.
“This is yet another day where Starmer will say what he thinks people want to hear during an election because he lacks conviction to say what he believes. A Labor government would allow open door immigration, making the UK a magnet for illegal migrants.
“Only Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives are committed to cutting migration and stopping the boats. We have a record of taking bold action to cut migration to secure Britain's future.”
The Labor leader is putting the migration plan in his manifesto, and it will include passing laws to ban law-breaking employers from hiring foreign workers and to train more Britons.
Last year's net migration figure of 685,000 has “got to come down.”
He vowed to “control our borders and make sure British businesses are helped to hire Brits first”.
While encroaching on traditional Tory territory, Sir Keir hit out at successive Conservative governments for promising but failing to cut numbers.
A Labor government would bar bosses who break employment law – for example by failing to pay workers the minimum wage – from hiring foreigners.
Sectors of the UK economy have become “very heavily dependent on overseas recruitment” because of a “failure in the UK labor market”, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper has said.
Ms Cooper added: “We think that migration should come down and that's the plan that Keir is setting out is in order to bring that migration down.
“It has trebled in the last five years under the Conservatives and right at the heart of that is a big increase in work migration, and that's because there's been a fundamental failure to tackle skills shortages, to deal with some of the problems in the labor market.”
She added: “The reason that whole sectors have become very heavily dependent on overseas recruitment is because of a failure in the UK labor market, because of a failure of a Conservative government. Some of that is around skills, some of that is around getting people back into work.”
It would also legislate to link the immigration system to training, with businesses applying for foreign worker visas having to train Britons to do the jobs.
Alison Thewliss, from the SNP, said: “Instead of coming forward with policies based on Scotland's needs, Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak are both amping up the far-right belief that migrants are to blame for all of our problems – but it's not migrants. , it's Westminster.”
“From our care sector and our NHS to our economy, the cruel immigration policies that both the Tories and Keir Starmer's Labor have now adopted directly harm Scotland,” she said.