Illegal immigration, what is the solution

  Progressive European Party

Some of the people who wish to restrict immigration into the UK and their supporters insist that illegal immigrants receive benefits. Whereas in reality illegal immigrants do not get housed by local authorities or receive any state help. 

The confusion comes from the likes of Nigel Farage and Katie Hopkins, who try to muddy the waters between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants. 

The picture being painted by Hopkins and Farage is that we are soft on refugees. Asylum seekers and illegal immigrants are one and the same thing and they are advocating that we need a regime far severer than the one we have today to deal with them. What can we say, or for that matter do, about this type of fake news? Because the truth is somewhat different.

In May 2009, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reviewed the UK and expressed concern “at the low level of support and difficult access to health care for rejected asylum-seekers.” It recommended that the UK “ensure that asylum seekers are not restricted in their access to the labour market while their claims for asylum are being processed” and review the regulation of “essential services to rejected asylum-seekers, and undocumented migrants, including the availability of HIV/AIDS treatment.” In 2010, the UNSpecial Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants endorsed these recommendations and urged the UK Government to ensure “that refused asylum-seekers are not left destitute while they remain in the United Kingdom.”

In other words, despite what Farage and Hopkins may tell their supporters we already treat them badly. Illegal immigrants would most likely be arrested and deported if they did try to claim a benefit and asylum seekers are not here illegally.  

The UK is a signatory to the UN's 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. There are certain refugee rights that we are obligated to meet as signatories. 

These rights include:

• The right not to be forcibly returned, or refouled, to a country in which the refugee has reason to fear persecution (Article 33)

• The right not to be expelled, except under certain strictly defined conditions (Article 32)

• Exemption from penalties for illegal entry into the territory of a contracting State (Article 31)

• The right to work (Article 17)

• The right to housing (Article 21)

• The right to education (Article 22)

• The right to public relief and assistance (Article 23)

• The right to freedom of religion and free access to courts (Articles 4 and 16)

• Freedom of movement within the territory (Article 26)

• The right to be issued identity and travel documents (Articles 27 and 28)

If Farage thinks that we should leave the convention then that is what he should be campaigning for instead of trying to make out that we are a soft touch. In reality, the UK is not a soft touch for asylum seekers, far from it, in many cases, our provisions for refugees are woefully inadequate.

The type of racist propaganda being whipped up by these zealots has always been around. As anyone who remembers the National Front in the mid-1970s can testify. Today because of modern communications this kind of rhetoric is far more accessible to their supporters. Most of their followers seem to lap it up without attempting to make any factual appraisal, mostly I suspect because of confirmation bias. 

However, we should not let our repugnance for the peddlers of racism distract us from facing up to the immigration problem that we do have. Not the people who come here and then claim asylum, with them there is a set protocol to follow. The problems lie with the immigrants who are living here illegally. Most of whom did not cross the channel in a rubber dingy, but came here legally and then stayed on after their visa had expired. Many of them come from countries that you would most likely not associate with illegal immigration. The United States and Australia for example.

There are countless others brought here by people smugglers and are then forced to work, essentially as slave labour, to pay off the "debt" to their traffickers. Not only do these people not have access to public funds, but health and safety, workers rights or the minimum wage simply don't exist for them. 

It is not known how many illegals there are in the country, estimates put the numbers at anything between five hundred thousand to well over a million. Being part of the black economy no tax revenue is collected from them and most likely not much from their employers either.

What are the solutions?

Boris Johnson has in the past suggested that we should have an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Being Boris Johnson his proposals are low on detail and change what little detail they do have each time he puts the idea forward. His idea is to give amnesty only to people who have lived here for 5,10,12 or 15 years depending on when he said it. This will not solve the problem for anyone arriving in the back of a lorry this week or for most of the ones who have already arrived because they will not have the documentation necessary to prove how long their stay has been.

Talk about a Catch 22, illegals can stay if they have documentation, but they don’t have documentation because they are illegals. 

The only real way of solving the problem is to give amnesty to everyone regardless of how long they have been here. This would give them the right to remain and work here indefinitely so bringing them into the system. With the possibility of over one million people to process, this would have to be very well organised.  

Wouldn't this just give the green light to the people smugglers? A smugglers charter. 

No, in fact, it would put the smugglers out of business. They rely on the people they have brought into the country paying off their "debt" by working for them after they have arrived. This will no longer happen to new arrivals and the ones here now can be set free from their servitude. Hopefully, this will also help to identify and prosecute the people involved in this illegal trade. 

What happens after the amnesty period is over, the smugglers will just go into business again?

Everything will have to be tightened up to stop this from happening. More international cooperation will be needed to track down the criminals. It is also imperative that illegals that are found are treated as innocent victims and given help. Everything should be done to pick apart the organisations that maintain them here. The Chinese cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay were all living somewhere and working for someone. And temporary visitors will need to register on arrival and be traced so we can be sure that they are all leaving on time.

If we accept that we have a major but mostly unseen problem then the resources will have to be made available to prevent us from getting in this position again. Giving illegals no options other than to remain hidden or be arrested and deported can never be a solution.

Philip Notley

progressiveeuropeanparty@gmail.com