London: thousands attend Mass for Migrants at Westminster Cathedral

STRANGERS INTO CITIZENS
CAMPAIGN BRIEFING

A campaign by the Citizens Organising Foundation for a pathway into citizenship for irregular migrants who have made new lives in the UK.

1. A reality-check

1.1     The Government believes that there are between 300,000 and 500,000 irregular migrants in Britain: a combination of rejected asylum seekers, visa overstayers and people who entered the country without the knowledge of the authorities.  Many of them have been here for many years and do not want to leave the UK, either because they are afraid to return to the countries they have fled from, or have made new lives in the UK, or both.  Many of those who have been here for years are working and paying taxes.

1.2     The Home Office admits that at the current rate of deportations, it would take at least 25 years to forcibly deport all irregular migrants which would cost billions of pounds.  The Government estimates that it costs £11,000 to remove just one person from the UK, times this by the hundreds of thousands of irregular immigrants and it will cost the UK tax payer billions of pounds to remove them all.[1]

1.3     In purely financial terms, leaving things as they are also makes no sense. A report by the National Crime Intelligence Service published in 2006 summarises the total loss to the Exchequer from unpaid tax and NI contributions to be as much as £3.3 billion – enough to build 132 schools or 13 hospitals[2].

1.4     On the other hand, if similar proposals to ours were introduced the extra money from taxes would result in a gain to the national budget of between £500m to £1bn a year, according to estimates from a highly respected group of public policy professionals[3].

2. OUR PROPOSAL

2.1     Strangers into Citizens is a campaign arising from a humanitarian concern at the conditions in which hundreds of thousands of people in Britain are forced to live. The member organisations of the Citizen Organising Foundation – an alliance of faith and community groups – believe that people who have made new lives in Britain, who work and pay taxes, and who contribute in many other ways to our country and society, should be given the opportunity to earn the right to become a citizen of our nation.

2.2     We believe that those who can speak English and have no serious criminal record or links to undesirable groups should be allowed to apply for an earned citizenship programme if they have been living in the UK for at least four years.  We propose that those who are eligible, be admitted to a two-year “pathway to citizenship”, during which time they have the right to work and can collect character and employer references.  At the end of the two years, they would be granted citizenship as long as they meet these requirements in full.

2.3     For some the hundreds of thousands of people in Britain who could be eligible for regularisation, it would mean the end to uncertainty and wastefulness. It would mean an end to the criminalisation of people just want to work, pay taxes and improve the lives of their families.

2.4     Many other countries have carried out similar schemes as a way of closing the gap between law and reality.  Spain, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands and Germany have all introduced similar schemes to the one we are proposing in the past few years. The new President of the United States, Barack Obama proposed such a scheme as part of his election campaign.  It is clearly time for the UK to do the same.

3. CONTROLLING OUR BORDERS

3.1     Every country has the right to regulate migration flows. It is one of the essential tasks of a state. But it will be impossible to “tighten our borders” while failing to acknowledge that a large number of irregular migrants have already made new lives for themselves and their families in Britain, and consider the UK to be there home.

3.2     One of the advantages of regularisation is that it makes criminals with no papers easier to find and deport. People-traffickers, drug traffickers, international criminals and terrorists are hard to track down because of the large numbers in the “illegal” or black economy.  Regularisation will shrink the black economy and help to expose these undesirables, enabling the police and authorities to concentrate on tackling these criminals.

3.3     Regularisation is not, an “opening” of Britain’s borders, but a moral, sensible and practical way of dealing with the consequences of more than a decade of immigration.

3.4     Regularisation, by shrinking the black economy will help to reduce opportunities for the criminals and people traffickers to exploit vulnerable irregular migrants.  This will help to reducing rather than encouraging more illegal migration into the UK.

4. THE BENEFITS FOR LOCAL COUNCILS

4.1     While it is for the Government to ultimately decide whether to introduce a one-off earned path to citizenship for irregular migrants, Local Councils presently bear much of the brunt for the Government’s unwillingness to support the idea.  Many councils extend their services on an ad-hoc basis to support irregular migrants, even though the Government does not pick up any of the financial cost of them doing so.

4.2     If these irregular migrants were given the right to work, then many of them would no longer need the help of Local Councils, and those that still did, would have the costs of this help paid in part by the Government, making the system fairer for everyone.  Because of this, it is in Local Councils interests to support the Strangers into Citizens campaign, if simply just for financial reasons.

4.3     While there is clearly a financial case for Local Councils to support the campaign, there are many other compelling reasons why all people, from Local Councillors to the public should get behind the campaign.

5. THE BENEFITS OF REGULARISATION

5.1     Recognises the dignity of human beings who have made new lives in Britain;

5.2     Extends and reinforces the rule of law;

5.3     Makes it easier to police undesirable elements in British society;

5.4     Helps to enforce a stricter immigration policy;

5.5     Levels the playing-field for low-paid workers;

5.6     Enables businesses to employ legally the skilled labour it needs;

5.7     Brings irregular migrants out into the light, allowing them to play a full part in society;

5.8     Ensures that tens of thousands of British workers receive the protection of the law;

5.9     Shrinks the black economy;

5.10    Frees up billions of pounds in taxes for the Exchequer;

5.11    Enables local authorities to plan better for the needs of its populations;

5.12    Builds a more cohesive British society, at peace with itself;

5.13    Turns outlaws into neighbours, and strangers into citizens – in the best traditions of British pragmatism and humanitarianism.

6. CONTACT INFORMATION

6.1     The STRANGERS INTO CITIZENS campaign is organised by the CITIZENS ORGANISING FOUNDATION, 112 Cavell Street, London E1 2JA.

6.2     For more information, or to offer support, please contact the campaign coordinator, Hratche Koundarjian, on 020 7043 9874, or email hratche.koundarjian@cof.org.uk.