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Migrant amnesty 'not ruled out' The prospect of an amnesty for illegal immigrants has been raised by the new minister in charge of immigration. Liam Byrne told MPs he had asked for a report on the issues around a possible amnesty, saying it was "too early" to rule out the controversial idea. There is no official estimate of illegal immigrant numbers. Unofficial estimates vary from 310,000 to 870,000. Shadow home secretary David Davis said speculating about an amnesty was "highly irresponsible". The Home Office stresses there are no plans for an amnesty. In an appearance before the Commons home affairs select committee, Mr Byrne was asked whether the UK should follow countries like Spain in holding an amnesty. He told the MPs: "The position I'm in is really needing to understand in more detail than I do at the moment the precise segmentation of people whose positions have not been regularised." He said he would wait for a report before making any decisions on an amnesty. "We do, as an agency (the Immigration and Nationality Directorate) need to bring forward a stronger enforcement and removal strategy, that is actually rooted in an analysis of the kind of problems that it's trying to solve. "And so, to be frank with the committee, it's too early for me to get into that question yet, because I just haven't got that analysis in front of me." The Institute for Public Policy Research, a think
tank close to ministers, has said an amnesty to 500,000 people living
illegally in the UK could raise £1bn in taxes. Mr Dromey said: "The time has come for the government to be brave, distinguishing between deporting the few who commit serious crimes and allowing the many undocumented migrant workers to remain. "They are good men and women, essential to our economy and pillars of their local churches and communities." Mr Byrne's predecessor as immigration minister, Tony McNulty, rejected the amnesty idea earlier this year, saying he would simply not accept illegal immigration. The Conservative spokesman David Davis said even speculating about a possible amnesty was "highly irresponsible" when the UK's borders were so badly protected. "An amnesty could lead to a massive and uncontrolled
increase in the numbers coming here," said Mr Davis. Its chairman, Sir Andrew Green, said: "It is not a change of thinking, it is an absence of thinking. Amnesties do not reduce illegal immigration, they encourage it," he said. Former Home Secretary David Blunkett said there had been a "little debate" about an amnesty when he was in office and asked about the idea by a journalist. "I said it's impossible to have an amnesty without ID cards and a clean database," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme. 'Fixable' Without ID cards, there was no way of tracking illegal migrants and no incentives for them to come forward to register for an amnesty, he argued. Mr Blunkett said ministers would make the UK a "magnet" for illegal migrants if they announced an amnesty before it actually came into force. In the questions session, Mr Byrne was asked about the future of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) after Home Secretary John Reid said it was not "fit for purpose". He replied: "There are reasons for believing that it will take some time but IND is very much within the realm of the fixable." He pointed to the success in reaching the "tipping point" where more failed asylum seekers were removed than there were new asylum applications. ---------------------------------------------------
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