Commenting, Alp Mehmet, Vice Chairman of Migration Watch UK, said:
“It seems Mr Johnson is considering an amnesty for illegal immigrants in order to avoid another Windrush. This makes no sense. Those wrongly caught up in Windrush had every right to be here and bear no comparison to people who have either entered illegally or stayed on illegally and know full well that they have no right to be here.
“An amnesty for them would be manna for traffickers. It would encourage further illegal inflows, reward illicit behaviour, be costly to UK taxpayers and be grossly unfair to migrants who follow the rules. Amnesties do not work, as Spain and Italy have proved.”
Note to editors:
- The Daily Mail reports that Mr Johnson ‘is considering an “amnesty” for tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who have been in Britain for more than 15 years [and] claims the radical plan would stop a repeat of the Windrush scandal where long-term residents were wrongly deported’.
- There are estimated to be over a million illegal immigrants already here.
- Former senior officials suggest the Home Office has already estimated the illegal population to be increasing by at least 150,000 per year.
- Our estimate is a net increase of 70,000 per year.
- 77% of the public say illegal immigration is a serious problem facing the country (Project28 poll, 2018).
- The Home Office said in 2013 that each additional person staying on costs the taxpayer between £4,000 and £7,500 in health, education and welfare. Why should UK taxpayers fund all this?
- It is nonsense to cite Windrush in connection with a proposed amnesty for illegal immigration. In the case of the amnesty, those concerned have broken the law and know it. Those wrongly affected by Windrush were the victims of bureaucratic error.