Page last updated at 17:42 GMT, Monday, 19 April 2010 18:42 UK

Illegal immigration: Is an amnesty the answer?

By Daniel Sandford
Home affairs correspondent, BBC News

Throughout the election campaign the BBC's expert team of journalists is examining the key claims made by politicians and assessing what their policies and promises mean to you.


Welcome to Reality Check. Today I'm scrutinising Liberal Democrat plans for an amnesty for people who have come to Britain illegally.

The Conservatives suggest it would actually make the problem worse - but is this true?

Nobody really knows how many "irregular migrants" there are in the UK, but one recent estimate by the London School of Economics put it at 618,000 - within a range of 417,000 to 863,000.

The Liberal Democrats say it is now time to "regularise" those who have been here longest, so they can integrate into the legal economy and contribute to the exchequer by paying taxes.

They are calling it an "earned route to citizenship", but they also say they have no idea how many people would qualify.

Nick Clegg: "How can you deport someone when you don't know where they live?"

Their manifesto says: "We will allow people who have been in Britain without the correct papers for 10 years, but speak English, have a clean record and want to live here long-term to earn their citizenship. This route to citizenship will not apply to people arriving after 2010."

Probed further, party officials tell me that those who qualify will then have to serve a probationary period of two years during which they would have to work and pay taxes.

Then they would have to pay a fee or do voluntary service as "penance" to qualify for full citizenship.

Would it work?

Such amnesties have been tried before.

Researchers at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society at the University of Oxford have looked at previous studies, in particular ones of a United States amnesty in 1986.
http://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/fi ... Report.pdf

They found that "almost all show that the large-scale amnesty implemented in 1986 has not reduced, and has in fact increased, undocumented migration to the US, since it established new migration flows due to networks and family ties".

A total of 2.7m qualified for the amnesty in 1986. By 2000 there were an estimated 9.3m illegal immigrants living in the United States.

Meanwhile, Spain had six amnesties in 20 years. In that time the illegal population rose from 44,000 to 700,000 - a 15-fold increase.

However, the Liberal Democrats argue there is no link between the amnesties and the later rise in the number of illegal immigrants entering the two countries.

In fact, leader Nick Clegg told Reality Check it was far better to be "smart about this" and get such immigrants "out of the shadows" and into the hands of the tax man.

He also questioned how illegal immigrants could be deported when the authorities didn't know where they lived.

Tougher laws wanted

But what is clear is the Liberal Democrats are sticking their neck out on this. A recent opinion poll by Ipsos-MORI suggested that 65% of the population want tougher immigration laws , against just 4% who want the laws relaxed.

But there are other relaxations too, like allowing asylum seekers who are still awaiting a decision on their case to take up employment.

The Liberal Democrats say the other parties simply do not have policies to deal with the large numbers of people living in the UK without proper papers.

They also say honesty is their best policy and they point out that in polling immediately after last week's TV debate, Mr Clegg was scoring higher on immigration than Tory leader David Cameron.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/poli ... 629354.stm