Immigrants just want work
Sir: Frank Field MP (Letters, 24 March) thinks that giving a one-off amnesty to longterm undocumented migrants (that is, asylum-seekers who have waited for years in limbo on Home Office decisions; visa-overstayers who have secure jobs and pay taxes) would ‘send out a trumpet call to people to come here illegally’. I don’t pretend it would stop illegal immigration, but it wouldn’t have the green-light effect he fears: people don’t cross the world in search of visas but for work; where they find it (as in the UK) they often end up staying.
The US and many European countries have all introduced pathways to citizenship for long-term migrants because there are huge benefits, both for the host country and for migrants, of recognising realities. In each case they have not had a discernible greenlight effect; immigrants have continued to arrive in greater numbers — as they have to the UK, which has not had an amnesty because the economies need them. Of course, if the amnesty provision is too generous, it might have that effect; but we think our proposal of a six-year residence requirement annuls any such risk.
Mr Andrew Sim ends his letter with two acid drops: that I want to abolish immigration controls — nothing in my article suggested anything like it — and that my wages are paid by the ‘state-funded charityworld’. In spite of all temptations, for the record the Citizen Organising Foundation does not take the state’s shilling; its members — mostly churches, schools and the like — pay dues heavily supplemented by saintly, far-sighted community trusts which believe in the benefits of ordinary people being involved in politics.
Austen Ivereigh
Co-ordinator, Strangers into Citizens, Citizen Organising Foundation, London E1
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