Thread: Clegg defends amnesty plan for illegal immigrants

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clegg defends amnesty plan for illegal immigrants

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/libdem20 ... 64,00.html

Paul Owen
Tuesday September 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited



The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, today defended the party's plans to introduce an amnesty for up to 600,000 illegal immigrants.
The party's annual conference, in Brighton, is due to vote on a plan to create "an earned route to citizenship" for illegal migrants who have been in the UK for 10 years.

Other proposals include a border police force, an extension of language lessons and the reintroduction of exit checks at all ports.




11am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clegg defends amnesty plan for illegal immigrants


Paul Owen
Tuesday September 18, 2007
Guardian Unlimited



The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, today defended the party's plans to introduce an amnesty for up to 600,000 illegal immigrants.
The party's annual conference, in Brighton, is due to vote on a plan to create "an earned route to citizenship" for illegal migrants who have been in the UK for 10 years.

Other proposals include a border police force, an extension of language lessons and the reintroduction of exit checks at all ports.


Article continues

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Clegg said that the party wanted to "boost integration as well as immigration".
He added that his plans would provide "a route to earned legalisation for the up to 600,000 people who've been living in this country invisibly, illegally, often exploited by unscrupulous employers and others, to give them a route out of that and back into a law-abiding, tax-paying life in the United Kingdom ... so that they can play a full part in British society. Many of them want to."

Mr Clegg - often named as a potential successor to the Lib Dem leader, Sir Menzies Campbell - said that the plan was "not a blanket amnesty".

Applicants would have to prove they could speak English, and had no criminal record, and would have to pay a charge that could be redeemed or reduced in return for community service.

He said the fact that these people would then be "integrated into British society" would be "of benefit to all of us", adding: "After all, they're living here anyway."

Asked whether bundling together a border police policy and an amnesty gave out mixed messages to the public, Mr Clegg said: "I think they're completely consistent. If you want to be progressive and liberal internally within our borders, you have to first know who's coming in or out. It's two sides of the same coin."

Neither Labour nor the Conservatives had "the faintest clue what they are going to do" about illegal immigrants, he claimed, saying deporting them would be "massively expensive, impossible to implement".

Immigration was "an enormous opportunity rather than a threat", he said, "but the problem is that people's fears of immigration get substantially worse if they feel that the system isn't working, so what we're trying to do here is to say you've got to combine competence with fairness.

"We don't have to have this narrow, nasty debate where it's all about scaremongering and tub-thumping."

Mr Clegg added that immigration was "a two-way process", saying: "More Britons live abroad than non-Britons live in this country. We benefit enormously from the ability to live in other countries too."

He described the Tories' rival plans for a border police as "a johnny-come-lately proposal", while Gordon Brown was proposing "a national border police without any police powers" - something he called "a border force lite".

"If you're going to do it, you have to do it properly," he said.

Liberal Democrats in the UK are one of the most obnoxious bunch I have ever seen. They are for all bad and for the destruction of this civilization. Absolutely and without mercy.